There’s a ritual to the way most people vote in most UK elections – parliamentary, local, European and in referendums – which has remained largely unchanged for many decades. On election day, traditionally a Thursday, voters go to their local polling station and cast their ballots by marking crosses in boxes with a pen or pencil and paper. The ballots are then counted by hand after the polls close. The digital revolution, which has swept through so many areas of modern life, has barely touched the system by which we elect our democratic representatives. Moves to modernise it with automated systems have so far met with high levels of resistance amid concerns over security and fraud. … Concern over security is the main reason the UK government has so far resisted any significant moves towards e-voting. Cabinet Office Minister Sam Gyimah told the political and constitutional affairs committee there were “more downsides than upsides” to the technology.
Graham Allen acknowledges the concerns are legitimate, particularly with regard to online voting from PCs or mobile devices. His committee heard evidence from an electoral law expert, Professor RA Watt from Buckingham University, “It is quite clear that voting outside the controlled environment of the polling place is susceptible to individual… and organised or strategic fraud,” Professor Watt said.
“There does not seem to be a technology which guarantees that a device is being used exclusively by a bona fide registered voter acting freely in accordance with his or her own wishes; in the way that seclusion in a supervised polling booth enables a voter to act freely.”
Full Article: BBC News – Could e-voting be on its way in the UK?.