Election 2010: Why is everything digital except the voting system?
The Drum speaks to digital experts as to why, when the world is looking to move online, the voting system in the UK will be entirely offline.
And, as usual, the system for voting will be the same as the one used since the democratic system was put in place; a person places their vote on a piece of paper and pops it into the box for counting.
It’s not exactly a system born of the 21st Century and what with all the social networking by parties and the use of YouTube messages to garner votes, it would have been expected that the electoral system itself might have been updated somewhat.
Especially when we live in a world where it is possible to cast a vote where the person simply pushes a red button while pointing a remote control at their TV.
Stuart Avery, co-founder of digital development company E3 in Bristol says that trials have been attempted in other countries, including one trial scheme by a University in the UK which only registered 900 votes on campus, despite spending over £15m, and that security was always the greatest hurdle to overcome.
“There is such an incentive for somebody to try and defraud an election that making something secure was always a big concern and when you get to that, you end up with challenges around making it secure, like online banking where you have a pin number that goes with it to make it secure,” explains Avery who does admit that he believes that ‘one day’ voting will be done digitally, albeit a long-time from now.
Apparently, The Irish Government has previously spent around £42m on testing electronic voting technology, only for an advisory group to recommend against using it due to doubts over security.
Tony Foggett, CEO of Code Computerlove highlights the scale of the work involved in creating a digital system which could ensure democracy was carried out.
“The investment to develop an online system like that, you’d be talking in the region of £20m plus just to do the trial,” explains Foggett. “And then beyond that, it is still a big risk. Because it is digital, there is no guarantee that someone could not manipulate the process by replicating the process to produce the voting vouchers or replicate the system in some way that delivered more votes.”
Foggett adds another problem with the implementation of a digital voting system; “If the digital version did fall over, then you’ve always got something you can fall back on where you can do recounts of the actual voting receipts. With the digital version, it would become very much an instantaneous process. If it’s actually gone wrong during the actual insertion of that vote, it’s pretty hard to go back and track that.”
It’s well known that if it rains on Election Day, the voter turn out is lower. With the average age of the voter in the UK at 50, engaging with a younger audience and making it almost effortless to vote must surely also be vital to political parties.
Come the next election, if a working digital system is not introduced, a whole generation could be in danger of becoming completely disengaged.
Pete Martin, creative director of The Gate Edinburgh is heading up the creative team appointed to oversee the Scottish census being implemented next year, which will look to include digital elements.
He explains: “For the first time, householders will be able to fill in the census online in 2011. That’s taken a couple of years of development, but the logistics for online voting are of a different scale. You’d have around twice the number of records, as well as tricky issues such as voter privacy. I’m sure it will happen in the future, but it would need to be considered very carefully and piloted thoroughly.”
This at least demonstrates that the public sector has recognised the need to reach out and use online in order to compile personal data, surely this is one step towards an electronic voting system, should all go well, although the beaurocratic nature of form filling in the public sector could make security a process so arduous that that alone could disenfranchise voters.
Foggett raises another interesting point when he questions whether it is worth developing the technology due to the long spaces of time between each election, and the cost which it would include.
He says: “Because the process comes around once in a blue moon, the concentration on it goes away. If it was something that we were doing regularly, day in, day out, I would imagine that it probably would have been solved a long time ago. Technology also changes. Last time we had an election, I don’t think YouTube existed. We probably all think ‘we need to produce a website to do this’. Well in another few years would whatever we’ve produced at this stage, would it need rewriting and starting from Scratch again?”
So while there is clearly a desire for the election to ‘go digital’, the technology is still not yet there to ensure that it is trustworthy and the old system continues to be the most secure.
The caution and fear around implementing the technology for the first time as part of the electoral service would take a brave Government, which would need to have full trust in the technology before depending on it for even the smallest number of public votes.
Maybe it’s a step too far, but with the world heading in the digital direction that it is, surely it is only a matter of time…
The Electoral Commission has announced that it will work with Facebook in an effort to reach young people and encourage them to register to vote.
Last week, a competition that aims to harness the creative thinking of the design community was launched as it looks to redesign the democratic voting system.