Many countries are studying
the feasibility of e-voting. Although full-scale electronic distance voting is
not yet a reality, a number of countries have already tried out on-line voting
from traditional polling stations and other official sites.[1]
Electronic distance voting
could make voting easier, encouraging participation by people who are less
inclined to go to the polling stations. However, it could be more difficult to
protect integrity, entailing risks to the democratic principles of free and
secret voting. How to ensure that someone voting on-line is doing so freely and
without coercion? How to be certain of the identity of someone voting on the
Internet and at the same time protect the secrecy of his or her vote?[2]
E-voting sidesteps many of the
safeguards found at a polling station, such as the possibility of verifying
that the person truly exists and enquire about his/her eligibility to vote, or
the ability to mark the voter in some way (typically inking a finger or
endorsing a voter card) to prevent repeat voting. It is also more difficult to
detect errors and their source. In addition, e-voting raises questions
concerning public confidence, voter competence and accessibility, which could
threaten election integrity.[3] Lastly,
with a system based entirely on e-voting, there is a risk that individual
ballot records would not be saved, rendering a recount of the vote impossible.
[1] See Guérin, Daniel and Akbar, Asifa, “Electronic Voting
Methods: Experiments and Lessons,” Electoral Insight, March 2003.
[2]
See Birch, Sarah and Watt, Bob,
“Remote Electronic Voting: Free, Fair and Secret?” The Political Quarterly,
75(1), 2004, pp. 60–72.
[3]
See, e.g., Delwitt, Pascal, Kulahci, Erol and Pilet, Jean-Benoît,
“Electronic Voting in Belgium:
A Legitimised Choice?” Politics, 25(3), 2005, pp. 153–54.
