In the 13 years since European jurisdictions (led by Germany) first started testing internet voting, early hopes - and hype - for the technology have been thoroughly dashed. The UK's experience is typical: i-voting put on indefinite hold after early trials showed it generated little or no extra turnout but posed potentially serious problems.
There's one shining exception, in a Baltic former Soviet republic. Estonians have been offered internet voting in five binding elections since 2005, for Parliament, President, national referendum and local authorities. In the most recent, just under a quarter of voters took up the offer.
For the country's authorities, electronic voting is a central part of the whole "E-Estonia" experience of efficient joined-up government, secure electronic ID cards and ubiquitous free Wi Fi. The package was on show last week at a series of sessions at the ICE11 e-governance conference in the capital, Tallinn. Priit Vinkel, adviser to the Estonian national electoral committee, told the conference in Estonia that e-voting is intimately connected with the electronic ID card - a million of which have been issued 2006.
Yet even in this most enthusiastic early adopter of internet voting, questions are being asked. One is why e-voting has failed to boost turnouts, which are now well below the 68% achieved in the heady first post-independence election in 2002. The research suggests a simple explanation - the people most likely to take up i-voting are those who would tend to vote anyway. "Any policy to increase turnout should focus on those who are not likely to vote electronically," Professor Alexander Trechsel told the conference.
Professor Ulle Madise, of the University of Tartu, said that increasing turnout was never the aim of the Estonian programme. "It was already easy to vote, so if you didn't take part then it was probably not because they could not."
Meanwhile, a study by international observers has raised a number of potential problems with the process. Independent scrutiny of the March elections by the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe, which represents 56 democracies, found several points of concern. Robert Krimmer senior adviser on new voting technologies, of the OSCE said the conclusion was that system works - but that there is "scope for further improvement" in matters such as the legal framework, oversight and accountability and some aspects of technology.
Legally, the report called for more detailed legislation explicitly setting out processes for determining the validity of internet votes and for the detraction of personal data collected in elections. On technology, it recommends that the election committee build in-house IT rather than rely on outsourcers. It also called for a formal disaster recovery plan. It also observed that the application is available only in Estonian language - a sensitive issue in a country with a sizeable Russian-speaking population.
The Estonians say they are taking these points on board. But what of the rest of the world? What went wrong? "Internet voting was a visionary concept; hopes were very high and there was over-anticipation of the effects," said Krimmer. In the end it is just an IT project, he said - but with a unique responsibility. "It has to deliver on time. There is no way of postponing an election. That puts huge pressure on the system." With this in mind Estonia may have to be content to blaze a lonely trail.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Michael Cross
Quelle/Source: UKauthorITy, 04.10.2011
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