By Will Sturgeon, 30 March 2005 15:10
NEWS The UK public is losing faith in the integrity of general elections with more than a third of voters concerned about election fraud.
The greatest concerns focus on the proposed introduction of more high-tech methods of voting which will lose a demonstrable 'paper trail'.
Technologies such as SMS, digital television and the internet have all been proposed for e-voting and trials have already taken place in the UK with 70 per cent of respondents to a recent MORI poll saying they are aware of such advances.
Of those polled, 56 per cent said such technologies would make fraud easier to commit – with SMS most commonly perceived as prone to fraud (by 74 per cent) and email (66 per cent) a close second. However, the one silver lining on this otherwise bleak picture for high-tech voting is a likely decrease in voter apathy and consequent higher turnouts, particularly among the young.
Almost half the voters aged between 18 and 34 said they would be more likely to vote if they could do so by text.
David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica, who commissioned the research, said the recent rigged and re-run ballot in the Ukraine and consecutive controversial US presidential elections will have played a part in knocking voter confidence in the UK.
Porter told silicon.com: "This is certainly a double-edged sword. The [UK] government wants to get more voters out and taking part in elections but there must be no compromise where security or electoral integrity are concerned. There are certainly some dangers if the government jumps on this too quickly.
"I believe a widespread move to e-voting is inevitable but we must ensure the right checks and balances are in place."
However, Porter added that voters are perhaps now also starting to see the general fallibility in the offline polling system too where verification is certainly disproportionately lax compared to other social transactions.
Porter said it is worrying that no formal identification document is required when voters present themselves at a polling station and yet the same person may be required to present three forms of ID just to register at their local Blockbuster video store.
More than half of respondents to the MORI poll (58 per cent) believe ID cards will provide an answer to this particular problem.
And certainly it will take a while to wean many off traditional polling systems.
"There is something about a paper trail of ballot papers which feels like a lot more of a robust system," Porter said.
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. Barry Stamp
The current UK system of allowing a single person in any household to declare all resident voters for the electoral roll is of course seriously flawed. If a change to e-voting would bring about a paradigm shift in the quality of voter information held by the government, and the ability for the individal to have easy and free access to it, I would welcome the change with open arms. Current government databases about people leave a lot to be desired and provide poor foundations for any proposed ID scheme. Much work needs to be done here and this will take time.
2. Tim Haines
If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it! You only have to look at all the arguments and recriminations that followed the last two US elections and compare them with the lack of the same in this country to see that our paper based method is by FAR the best and most fraudproof way to run an election. Please, let's keep it just the way it is.
3. Warren Swaine
It's pointless worrying about this. Thames Valley Police found actual fraud in the current postal system in Reading's Redlands war yet no action is to be taken. It's not a technology issue.
The winner of every election is always happy enough with the process to not want to do anything about it.
4. Tim Courtney
Point of minor correction. Not all parts of the UK are so lax. In N Ireland it is necessary to present ID in order to vote. I had to present my passport when I lived there, non-passport holders could get government approved ID.
5. jim doyle
Two issues here …………
Twice every week, millions of members of the public fill in a registration form, wait for a result and generally don’t question that result when it is declared – don’t tell me we can organise something like the National Lottery every week with no crisis of confidence but can't organise something like an election on the same basis.
Making it easier to vote is not the answer to the problem – the solution might just be to give the people politicians with integrity that they can believe in.
6. Ken Hall
The only way to have confidence in the system is to be able to see what happens to your vote once it has been cast. In our current paper system, it goes into a box, conveyed by independent agents to the count where it is counted in public in front of the candidates.
In any electronic system, your vote is intercepted by computer code. You have to take it on trust that your vote is counted and not lost, changed or duplicated. You, as a voter, have NO WAY of knowing if that is the case.
I do not trust a financial backer of one party to write code that is compliled and then effectively counts the votes in secret, as happened in the US elections.
As an earlier respondent wrote, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
7. Ken Hall
Jim Doyle... in response to your claim of lottery software systems. You are correct, it should be possible, however, the company in the US that lost thousands of votes for Kerry and had voting machines counting backwards actually makes bank cash machines (ATM) in the US and they never lose a cent.
I still wouldn't trust them to count my vote in secret. For that is what happens when your vote is counted electronically. Do you know if the code that iw written to count the votes has anyothey code that adds votes or removes votes? If the code is propiatary then you will have no way of knowing and will have to take it on trust that the computers are adding up fairly.
8. Graham Coles
Voting at a polling station is the most secure fraud-resistant system we have in the UK.
In the states, they prefer to appear smarter by using electronic voting where you can have 5 times as many votes as legitimate voters and candidates being given a negative amount of votes etc.
In order for a voting system to appear fair it has to be seen to be as free from fraud as possible, it needs to be simple to use and just as easy for people to understand how it works.
How many people wishing to vote by text know how a text-message is actually transmitted through mobile networks to the end point where it is registered? How many points of interception are there where their legitimate vote can be hijacked and changed? What security is in the phone, the voting protocol etc. Nobody asks, knows or cares. End result: fraud is likely to be untraceable and the result of any election based on this form of voting will be inconclusive.
Bruce schneier has long written about the perils of e-voting, and the measures which need to be present to avoid these pitfalls, unfortunately nobody seems to be listening.
If electronic voting in the UK goes ahead, be prepared for the next and future governments to be determined by fraud; your vote may actually count for nothing.