Forget about casting a vote online for the presidential election in November. It's unlikely that government officials will cede control of elections anytime soon to an Internet polling place. That means big challenges for Web startups vying to run electronic ballot boxes in the U.S.

The two front-runners of public online elections, VoteHere.net and Election.com, are confident that the online elections market will blossom in the near future as government officials warm to the concept of adding Internet voting as an option. In the U.S., more than 90,000 jurisdictions hold elections each year, so there's no shortage of potential customers.

Public and private elections, which already generate a multimillion-dollar demand for TV advertising, direct mailings, staff costs, and other related expenses, are expected to become a $7 billion to $10 billion annual market, says Joe Mohen, CEO of Election.com and founder of Proginet, a software security firm. Private elections are frequently held by corporations, unions, nonprofit organizations, and other groups.

In addition, political elections are kind of a captive market -- the first duty of a democracy is to hold elections. Also, the technology to make online voting easy is coming out at a time of fiscal restraint. The lure of cutting costs by processing votes online potentially by half or more stands to be a big draw.

BUT IS IT SAFE?

Still, officials who oversee elections are cautious. Running secure elections is of paramount importance to their careers. As of yet, they're not quite believers in online voting. Even VoteHere.net's partnerships with Cisco Systems (on data-center architecture) and Counterpane Internet Security, which both help with security safeguards, hasn't erased concerns.

Ron Faucheux, editor-in-chief of the political trade magazine Campaigns & Elections, says online voting gets a thumbs-up from voters under 40 years old. But those over 60 fear it could open the door to voter fraud, and many voters don't understand that voting online will just be an additional option, like mail-in ballots. "There's a lot of public education that needs to be done," Mr. Faucheux says.

VoteHere.net and Election.com say their online voting systems are safe from outside interference, but they have yet to find premier venues to really show off that ability. So far, the two companies have picked at the edges of the public elections market. Those efforts -- demonstration projects, really -- have invited criticism for reasons other than online security.

ARIZONA DREAMING

In January, Bellevue, Washington–based VoteHere.net, founded in 1996, held an online straw poll for the Alaska Republican Party. Its vote count was not impressive. Only 35 of 4,000 people voted online, and many of those votes came from Alaska's Washington, D.C., congressional delegation, notes Michael Cornfield, research director of the Democracy Online Project of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

In March, Election.com hosted the online voting component of the Arizona Democratic Party, the first and only legally binding public election so far to include online voting. The Garden City, New York company, formed in February 1999, says it processed 80 percent of the 86,000 ballots cast by state Democrats. Although more impressive than the Alaska straw poll because of the number of votes it handled, the Arizona primary also had shortcomings, says Mr. Cornfield. He points to Election.com taking credit for a jump in voter turnout of more than 600 percent from 1996. What the company doesn't discuss is how the primary's online component was hyped and structured, he adds.

"The increase in Arizona can be attributed to money spent on promoting the vote and the five days allowed for online voting," Mr. Cornfield says.

DIGITAL DIVIDE

Better public relations would also help. Online voting companies already face criticism that online voting will widen the so-called "digital divide." Earlier this year, the Voting Integrity Project sued, unsuccessfully, to stop online voting in Arizona. The organization claimed online voting violates the Voting Rights Act by favoring white voters, who have greater Internet access than nonwhite voters.

The "income gap" is another rallying cry. Critics argue that online elections give an unfair advantage to affluent voters who have access to the Internet from home or office, further widening the voter turnout gap between rich and poor.

With so much flak from the concept of online voting, it's no surprise that online political industry firms are largely steering clear of the potential market. Instead, they mainly provide traditional campaign services. Or, like Grassroots.com, they tackle the services market.

Grassroots.com aims to create online political communities for individuals, interest groups, and candidates in order to lower the cost of getting into politics. Dick Morris, President Clinton's former political advisor, also aims to create political critical mass online. His Vote.com pushes online polls and emails the results to office holders.

PRIVATE GOALS

The hesitancy in the public sector is forcing VoteHere.net and Election.com to look for work in the private and nonprofit sectors. VoteHere.net hosted an online election in March for Kansas State University, helping produce a record turn-out for the school's student-body elections.

Union elections also look like a ripe market. In March, VoteHere.net helped end a strike against Boeing by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace by processing online votes of out-of-state union members almost in tandem with votes by local members. Likewise, Mr. Mohen says Election.com is targeting nonprofit companies and professional groups as its core market. Election.com counts the Sierra Club and the American Association for the Advancement of Science among its customers.

Jim Adler, VoteHere.net's founder (and current president and CEO), has a background in cryptography and signal processing. He also holds a patent on a digital signature technique that allows documents to be sent safely over the Internet. That high-level security experience is showing up in how VoteHere.net is positioning itself. If security standards are met, private groups will take notice, says Mr. Adler.

EYEING THE PUBLIC

Still, both companies want to crack the public elections market wide open. Two immediate goals for VoteHere.net will be certification by the National Association of State Election Directors and laying out its product for academic review. Mr. Adler is confident of success. "By the 2001 election cycle, we'll be certified in 34 states," he says. "We'll be selling poll-site [online] voting solutions next year."

In February, Election.com acquired NewVoter.com, a provider of online voter registration technology. Election.com can now register voters -- in English and Spanish -- through links on iVillage.com, RockTheVote.org, and Voter.com.

If the U.S. online public elections market doesn't take shape soon, overseas markets might. VoteHere.net has plans to expand overseas. Election.com already has, with offices in Paris and London. It also has plans for a South Africa office later this year and is looking into setting up offices in Latin America and Asia.

In America, VoteHere.net is trying to follow the California Secretary of State's Task Force on Internet Voting's outline for easing online voting into elections. The report urges caution in adopting online voting, recommending "evolutionary rather than revolutionary change."

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