The Nationalist Party is taking a cautious approach when it comes to electronic voting following revelations last month that people who bought Maltese citizenship made it onto the electoral register without satisfying the minimum residency requirements. PN sources told the Times of Malta the party would only agree to use ID cards for voting, instead of the traditional voting document, if political parties were allowed to carry out audits on Identity Malta’s ID card processes. Last week this paper revealed that after reviewing the complaints filed by the PN, the Electoral Commission had conceded that 39 out of the 91 complaints were justified. The use of ID cards to vote would be the first step in a host of new technological measures in the local voting system.
Both major parties have concerns about electronic voting. The main issues are ensuring that the system would not allow the electronic traceability of an individual voter’s choice and avoiding fraud. This challenge is exacerbated in online voting.
The Labour Party said that, to date, online voting was far from protecting the Constitutional requirement of voters’ absolute secrecy.
On the other hand, the PN proposed in its good governance document a pilot project for online voting to establish whether it is a system that can be safely and transparently used in elections in Malta.
Full Article: Parties remain cautious about e-voting – timesofmalta.com.