Florida to test military Web voting

TALLAHASSEE — Secretary of State Kurt Browning met Florida voters based in Kuwait and Iraq on Tuesday and said the visit reinforces the need for a first-of-its-kind experiment to let some military personnel cast ballots electronically.

While Browning's office last week certified the system — Operation Bravo — the initial test won't include military personnel in the Middle East.

Only military personnel registered to vote in Okaloosa County in the Panhandle are eligible for the test.

Over a 10 days from Oct. 24 to Nov. 2, those overseas voters will be able to cast ballots at kiosks in three bases: Mildenhall, England; Ramstein, Germany; and Kadena, Japan. The kiosks will be hooked up to a voting server in Barcelona, Spain, and will transmit encrypted data through a secure virtual private network, or VPN.

Specially trained county election workers will supervise the electronic voting by the 600 to 800 Okaloosa voters who are eligible.

Some voter-watchdog groups have called on Browning to block the experiment and say any reliance on the Internet for counting ballots is unreliable.

The Florida Voters Coalition calls Operation Bravo "illegal and dangerous," and violates the 2007 law that requires the use of paper ballots.

Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.