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Show The Salt Lake Tribune UTAH/NATION - Internet MayReplace Voting Booths in the largest but most remote area Ce tee ee ites. “oe 37 out of 4,200 registered Republicans in that area voted, party Tuckerman Babcock wants to implementit statewide in the next strawpoll. “Tt was a pretty small turnout, @ Continued from A-1 but it opened the door for the experience the understanding that this is a new way to cross the Upto now,residents under the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act — which included ae diers and all overseas workers — voted by mail, but “our statistics showed that manyofthese citizens, about a quarter of them, didn’t participate in the 1996 election because their ballots didn’t arrive in the mail in time or didn’t comeat all,” Brunelli said. “We wanted to makesure our voters were able to vote.” Weber County, along with two counties in Florida, Dallas County in Texas andall of South Carolina, project. In Weber, 50 soldiers and overseas civilians, including a Mormon missionary couple in London, will get to vote over the Internetthrough this experiment. “These are the voters who want to ensure they have the right to vote, so they are excited about it and elated that there will be a guarantee that their voice will be heard,” said Weber County Clerk Auditor Linda Lunceford. “And I see this as being 10 times more convenient.” The November experiment is expected to showifInternet voting will be efficient, easy and secure. In Utah,voter turnoutfell from 78.2 percent in 1960 to 49.9 percent in 1996, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Allowing people to vote on computer could especially shake up the most apathetic group,the 18- to 24-year-olds, atechnologically-savvy bunchthat is the first to grow up with computers. But Utah Republican Party Chairman RobBishopis not convinced voting on computers will help turnout. “T have seen all the so-called theories for why people aren’t vot- ing. The only problem is, none of them hold up to the reality,” he said. “In remote areas, you makeit more convenient, but the same number would continue to vote. Whenall is said and done, I am skeptical that you would increase the number.” In Arizona, however, turnout skyrocketed in March after voters used the first legally-binding Internetelection for the Democratic presidential primaries. Voter participation inc! 600 percent, said Arizona party Executive Director Cortland Coleman. Voters there logged onto the party’s homepage andvoted by inputting a personal identification number assigned to each person and his or her date and state of birth. Voters then chose a candidate by clicking on the name and confirming the choice. Voters also couldcasttheir ballots through thetraditional polling places, but “the convenience and ease of Internet voting is a very significant reason why we saw such an increase,” said Coleman. The Alaska Republican Party used Internet voting last January broad, expansive area of Alaska,” he said. Scott Axworthy, vice president of information technology and operations for VoteHere.net, which conducted the Alaska straw poll, eeeee to maintain three privacy and theability toverifyte election with a reliable recount. “If you drop any one of those pieces, your electionintegrity is in question,” he said. VoteHere.net, based in Belle- vue, Wash., uses sophisticated data encryption and digital signature technologies to ensure ballots sent to the local elections office are valid, Axworthy:said. “Our minimum goal is to de liver a system that meets the same requirements as today’s elections,” hesaid. “But we can deliver something that can far exceed the current system.” some election-watchers are concerned that voting on the computer could mean minority groups or the underprivileged who cannot afford a computer in the homewill be under-represented in the election process. “Access definitely is a concern to us,” said Amy Naccarato, director of Utah’s election office. “It’s hard to say, ‘People who have a computer can vote at homebut ev- eryoneelse has to go outside.’” But Arizona’s Coleman said opening up voting on people’s computers madehis election more accessible. “In some of our counties bor- dering Mexico where there is a high minority population, many people are not connected to the Internet. But they said, ‘It’s going to be easierfor us to find a computer than to haveto drivefive miles toa polling place,’ and we foundthat to be the case all over Arizona,” Coleman said. “It increased access . and got more people involved in the process.” Utah election officials eventually wantto try Internet voting and last month even met with VoteHere.net to review their system. Instead of allowing anyone on a computerto vote, they first want to try it on limited basis — by usiscomputers only in polling p “We want people to go to the polls. Anything that could makeit an easy is good,” Naccarato said. “But wejust need to approach it cautiously.” Officials hope that especially in Utah, where there are more computers per household than in any otherstate, residents will grasp the concept more readily. “Technology ii s one thing Utah is progressive about, and this Internet voting goes hand-in-hand with that,” said Utah Democratic Party Chairwoman Meghan Holbrook. “But I bet the majority ofoverall computer users — the ones that are most competent with computers,” she quipped, “are too young to vote.” Investigators Say Park Service Violated Rules the scene that had recommended a lower-intensity suppressionfire. “This resulted in additional fire being introduced into the unit, which ultimately produced the source ofspotting and escape when @ Continued from A-1 May7,”the report said. Robertson and Joe Stutler, a Forest Service fire specialist in Redmond, Ore., who also worked putfire along Road 4 that resulted in the escape from the project area,” wrote John Robertson, a fire behavior analyst for the Umatilla National Forest in Oregon, who helped prepare the report. Thefire, which scorched about 48,000 acres andleft several hundred families homeless, was 97 percentcontained Friday. On May12, while the fire was still burning outofcontrol, Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman imposed a 30-day moratorium on prescribed fires in the West. Babbitt said Friday he was extending the moratorium indefinitely for the Park Service butletting it expire for other agencies as scheduled. The firefighters who set the high-intensity suppressionfire violated the direction of land managers andfire specialists who had said a less aggressive, low- intensity fire should be used to try to controlthe prescribed burn. Thefindings were in a prelimi- Al3 Saturday, May 27, 2000 high winds developed on Sunday, = ‘Prescribed Burns’ in Utah U.S. Departmentof the Interior pees have planned about two dozen “prescribed burns”in Utah this The Bureau of Land Management intendsto to bunpo 19,000 acres, while the Park Service plans to burn about2, TheForest Service, an agency of the U.S. Doern of Agriculture, plans to burn about 40,000 acres in Utah. on the report, said in interviews Friday that they are not blaming the firefighters or holding them responsible for the blaze. “I would have done the same thing,” Robertsonsaid. “They never had the resources there to do the.job. ” The menalso saidtheir findings shouldnotalter a basic conclusion in their report — that the Park Service initiated the series of errors by having too few firefighters Joe Stutler Forest Servicefire specialist —i at the sceneof the prescribed burn. “They never had the resources there to do the job,”Stutler said. Robertson said the prescribed burn — even after it had “slopped over” past its boundary — would havelikely slowed or stopped had there been more firefighters initially at the scene.In thatcase, the suppression fire that blew out of control would not have beenlit, he said. Butonce local officials declared the prescribed burn a “wildfire,” a newfirefighting crew came to the scene and used the more aggres- typical for fighting large fires, including the setting of the high-intensity suppressionfire. Thatfire dried out nearby trees and made them moresusceptible to fire when the winds picked up. “It was bad timing in terms of the wind hitting,” Robertson said Friday. Andy Stahl, the executive director of an Oregon environmental group, said Interior officials have expectthem to do the job properly, not to makethe situation worse,” said Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics in Eugene,Ore. “They're the ones who turned a prescribed fire into a catastrophe.” Joan Anzelmo, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said the agency wasnottrying to downplay saidtoo little abouttherole offirefighters and as a result given a negative image to prescribed burns — practice that Stahl and other envir view as after all, included the information in the report, she said. “It's the combination ofall of critical to fire prevention. what took place that led to the “Youcall in a professional, you the role of the suppressionfire in the wildfire. The investigators had, mistakes,”she said. nary fire investigation report re- leased bythe Interior Department May18 and affirmed by the agency on Friday. But the role offirefighters in the blaze has largely avoided public attention in the aftermath of the fire that destroyed more than 220 homes andcaused the evacuation ofabout 25,000 people. Interior Department leaders haveinsteadstressed thefailure of National Park Service officials to properly plan and implement the i) OL New Coleman Spas from ay 9954 rd Ae Tae prescribed burn that ultimately led to the largestfire in New Mexico history. However, Appendix 8 ofthe report concludes that a fire set by firefighters to burn brush and prevent the prescribed burn from spreading is the one that blew out of controlfrom high winds. Elsewhere in the report, analysts said the large suppression fire was contrary to a fire man- 4 -)off Ice or PrtreeTT agement report written by land managers andotherfirefighters at PRE-INVENTORY SALE If you are not going campingorfishing this Memorial Day weekend,stop by and catch big savings. 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