David RichardsWould you like to vote online at the next Federal or State election? In the US and UK trials are being done to test the validity of electronic voting.
Australian Lori Steele, who quit her job to head up a US Internet voting organisation believes that Australian Governments would save millions if they moved to an online voting system.
Steele left her job in Melbourne to become CEO of Everyone Counts, a US company that specializes in Internet voting software for public and private elections said “I thought if the right technology were employed, we could have irrefutable elections,” she said.
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| Lorie Steele |
The company, which Steele moved to San Diego in 2006 from Melbourne has just 20 employees. But competitors say it is one of the top companies in the emerging field.
Everyone Counts offers governments and private entities software that allows for secure online voting. With its system, voters receive a packet of materials that includes a code number. Voters then go to a Web site, using the code number to log in, and make their selections.
When satisfied with the choices, voters use the mouse to click a button on the screen to send the data, which are then loaded onto a DVD. Steele said the data are more secure than even bank transactions because of its end-to-end encryption.
Recently, Everyone Counts helped run an election for Swindon Borough Council in the United Kingdom that allowed people to vote not only at the polling place but also by phone or via the Internet. The Swindon election is part of the United Kingdom’s five-year plan to modernize its voting systems.
Steele said that about 12,000 people, 24 percent of the turnout, voted online in that election. Critics say that democracy could be undermined by moves to use electronic voting in elections, warns a report.
The risks involved in swapping paper ballots for touch screens far outweigh any benefits they may have, says a recent Open Rights Group report. It based its conclusions on reports from observers who watched e-voting trials in May’s UK local elections.
The group called for a halt to e-voting until it is reliable, easy to oversee and has proven its integrity.
Cost counting
Observers acting for the ORG scrutinised local elections in England which tried out e-voting as well as Scottish elections using electronic counting systems to tally votes. What the observers saw led the ORG to express “serious concerns” about e-voting and whether it should be used local and national elections. In England, e-voting systems using kiosks, laptops, touch screens and mobile phones have been tried.
The ORG’s main objection was that e-voting was currently a “black box” system which stopped voters seeing how their votes were recorded or counted.
In response to the ORG report, the UK Ministry of Justice said: “We welcome input to the debate on electoral pilot schemes, and electoral modernisation in general.
“However, it is the Electoral Commission’s statutory responsibility to evaluate and report on electoral pilot schemes and we look forward to the publication of their official reports in August, to which we will respond.”
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