Should Electronic Voting Systems Be Used in Political Elections?
Should electronic voting systems be used in political elections?
MSc Software Development • 28 January 2013
INTRODUCTION
As a modern nation under a democratically elected government, providing a reliable, userfriendly balloting system for the electorate is an important requirement. Given the ubiquity of information technology and its utilisation into a constantly expanding array of industries and services, governments around the world have been debating, trialling and even implementing the use of Electronic Voting (e-voting) methods. With this debate comes a range of concerns relating to security, reliability, accessibility and trust over such systems. Advocates of these technologies argue that such issues as voter turnout and election costs may be improved while sceptics point out evidence which disproves such claims and raises further issues and complications not found with traditional paper methods. In this essay I will discuss some examples of different e-voting technologies and some of the problems surrounding them. I will then discuss some other more general issues relating to the topic and try and draw conclusions from existing research into the field. Though the topic is large, in order to narrow the debate for the purpose of this essay, I will attempt to relate examples to the UK and USA where possible.
TYPES OF ELECTRONIC VOTING
E-voting as it exists today takes a variety of forms, from paper punch cards counted electronically to entirely online voting methods whereby the electorate vote over the internet. This compares with the traditional method of marking a card or piece of paper and putting it into a ballot box to be counted by hand. There are several arguments for and against the use of e-voting systems, with each method presenting its own issues. In the UK, though traditional paper methods are still in use for general elections, there is still much discourse over the potential utilisation of electronic voting systems. Pilots have taken
MSc Software Development • 28 January 2013
INTRODUCTION
As a modern nation under a democratically elected government, providing a reliable, userfriendly balloting system for the electorate is an important requirement. Given the ubiquity of information technology and its utilisation into a constantly expanding array of industries and services, governments around the world have been debating, trialling and even implementing the use of Electronic Voting (e-voting) methods. With this debate comes a range of concerns relating to security, reliability, accessibility and trust over such systems. Advocates of these technologies argue that such issues as voter turnout and election costs may be improved while sceptics point out evidence which disproves such claims and raises further issues and complications not found with traditional paper methods. In this essay I will discuss some examples of different e-voting technologies and some of the problems surrounding them. I will then discuss some other more general issues relating to the topic and try and draw conclusions from existing research into the field. Though the topic is large, in order to narrow the debate for the purpose of this essay, I will attempt to relate examples to the UK and USA where possible.
TYPES OF ELECTRONIC VOTING
E-voting as it exists today takes a variety of forms, from paper punch cards counted electronically to entirely online voting methods whereby the electorate vote over the internet. This compares with the traditional method of marking a card or piece of paper and putting it into a ballot box to be counted by hand. There are several arguments for and against the use of e-voting systems, with each method presenting its own issues. In the UK, though traditional paper methods are still in use for general elections, there is still much discourse over the potential utilisation of electronic voting systems. Pilots have taken
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