Some
countries are testing and considering the introduction of remote e-voting
especially, and sometimes even exclusively, for their citizens who are living
or staying abroad. However, only a few countries allow external voters to cast
their votes electronically. Furthermore, there are a few experiments with
remote e-voting for external electors, and sometimes expressions of political
intentions to consider the question of remote e-voting for external electors.
This section highlights some examples of countries that are considering remote
e-voting for their citizens abroad.
Austria
In Austria,
e-voting is not a top priority for the government. Nevertheless, the Austrian
Federal Council of Ministers approved an e-government strategy in May 2003, in
which e-voting is listed as a project in the annex, and in the spring of 2004
the Federal Ministry of Interior established a working group on e-voting in
order to study and report on various aspects of e-voting (Federal Chancellery
2003; and www.bmaa.gv.at/ view.php3?f_id=6016&LNG=de&version). The working group was not
dealing with the question of e-voting for external electors. However, the
explanatory memorandum to the Austrian Federal Act on Provisions Facilitating
Electronic Communication with Public Bodies (the e-Government Act, available in
English at www.ris.bka. gv.at/erv/erv_2004_1_10.pdf>;), which came
into force on 1 March 2004, explains the provision for setting up a
supplementary electronic register as ‘a first step towards enabling Austrian
expatriates in future for example to be given the possibility of casting votes
at Austrian elections in electronic form’ (Explanatory memorandum to the act,
in German). In early 2007, the Federal Council of Ministers affirmed its
willingness to look into remote e-voting as an additional means of voting as
part of a bigger reform of democracy (see
www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3858&Ali
as=wzo&cob=274850).
Estonia
Discussions
on remote e-voting started in Estonia
in 2001 and one year later, the legal provisions for it were put in place.
During summer 2003 the National Electoral Committee started the e-voting
project. The system includes the use of smart cards and electronic signatures
(see National Election Committee 2005). The first tests of the remote e-voting
system were held in late 2004 and 2005 during local referendums and elections.
In March 2007 Estonia
held the world’s first national Internet election. A total of 30,275 citizens
(3.4 per cent) used remote e-voting which was available to Estonian voters in Estonia as well
as abroad (see National Election Committee, ‘Evoting Project’).
France
On 1 June
2003, French citizens residing in the USA were given the possibility of
electing their representatives to the Council of French Citizens Abroad
(Conseil supérieur des Français de l’étranger, CSFE; since 2004 the Assemblée
des Français de l’étranger, AFE) by remote e-voting. The AFE is a public law
body that is allowed to elect 12 members of the upper house of the French
Parliament, the Senate. In 2003, the Forum des droits sur l’internet (Internet
Rights Forum), a private body supported by the French Government, published recommendations
on the future of e-voting in France.
It recommended that remote e-voting should not be introduced, except for French
citizens abroad who should be able to elect the CSFE by voting over the
Internet (see Internet Rights Forum 2003). For the elections of 18 June 2006
all French citizens abroad were able to choose between three voting
channels—personal voting, postal voting or electronic voting (Ministry of
Foreign Affairs March 2006).
The Netherlands
In most
districts in the Netherlands,
voting is done electronically at polling stations. The Dutch Government is also
considering and testing remote e-voting (www.minbzk.
nl/uk/different_government/remote_e-voting_in; and Caarls 2004). Dutch
nationals resident abroad are entitled to vote in elections to the House of
Representatives and the European Parliament (Hupkes 2005). They have to
register with the municipality of The Hague for each individual legislative or European election. Dutch electors resident abroad are considered to be an ideal test group for an experiment with e-voting and telephone voting because they are already permitted to vote by post. The purpose of the e-voting project was to ease access for electors abroad and to encourage their participation in elections. The evaluation of the use of e-voting during the elections to the European Parliament in June 2004 showed
that e-voting had an added value and made voting more accessible. Subsequently,
in the legislative elections in November 2006, Internet voting was made available
again as an experiment and an alternative to postal voting for Dutch voters
abroad. A total of 19,815 valid ballots were cast in this way (see www.minbzk.nl/bzk2006uk/subjects/constitution_and/internet_elections).
the United States, Mexico
and Chile
were invited to participate using any computer connected to the Internet. The
Generalitat de Catalunya sponsored this pilot to examine the use of secure electronic
voting in the future (see www.gencat.net/governacio-ap/eleccions/e-votacio.htm).
Switzerland
In August
2000 the Swiss Government gave the Federal Chancellery the task of examining
the feasibility of remote e-voting. An interim report of the Swiss Federal
Chancellery on remote e-voting called Swiss living or staying abroad ‘the most
suitable target group’ because remote e-voting could save them time, increase
effectiveness and save costs (Federal Chancellery August 2004). Since 2002, a
variety of legally binding tests of remote e-voting have been carried out in
the cantons of Geneva (see www.ge.ch/
evoting), Neuchâtel (see www.bk.admin.ch/themen/pore/evoting/00776;). In March 2007 the
Swiss Parliament adopted the legal basis for harmonizing the voter registers
for Swiss voters abroad. This is the first step towards the offering the Swiss
abroad the possibility of remote e-voting, for which there is a strong demand
(see www.aso.ch;).
The USA
The USA built an
Internet-based electronic voting system for the US Department of Defense’s
Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP). The SERVE voting system, as it was
called (Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment), was planned for
deployment in the 2004 primary and general elections, and would have allowed
the electors overseas and military personnel to vote entirely electronically
via the Internet from anywhere in the world. It was expected that up to 100,000
votes would be cast electronically. However, SERVE was stopped in the spring of
2004 following a report by four members of a review group financed by the
Department of Defense. They recommended that the development of SERVE be shut
down immediately because they considered the Internet and the PC not to be
sufficiently secure (Jefferson et al. 2004).
