Don't Hold Your Breath For Online Voting; Casting ballots on the Net is still in the testing stages; Europeans taking the lead.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: PETE BARLAS

Concerns over "hanging chads" aren't doing much to help push voter elections online.

Widespread Internet voting is likely still years away, even though the issue of chads -- the residue from paper ballots that can obscure how a person voted -- nearly derailed a governor recall election in California.

Online voting eliminates chads -- and offers convenience and potential cost savings. But it needs plenty more testing before people are comfortable with it, experts say.

"Electronic elections will continue to be an evolutionary process, but it's not going to happen overnight," said Meg McLaughlin, chief executive of Accenture E-Democracy Services, a unit of Accenture Ltd., that makes software for electronic elections. "Online voting is at least five years away or more."

To date, only 9% of U.S. polling places even allow electronic voting, such as using computers with touch screens. That figure is expected to rise to 20% next year.

Because of the slow adoption of electronic voting, online voting is too far a leap for most cities and counties to handle just yet.