Electronic elections

By Christina Okoli

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THE�Internet has found its way into nearly every corner of our lives, and now, as the UK hangs on the verge of an expected general election, the web is once again rearing its head.

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The opposing Conservative party has already raised eyebrows by announcing plans to use email 'chain-letters' to send propaganda to supporters with invitations to forward them to friends. This campaign technique was first widely used in the last US presidential elections.

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In a report carried out by the Hansard Society, the Internet was found to have played a vital role in the US election of 2000, where the first ever legally binding Internet elections took place. And, according to the Hansard report, many of these techniques are likely to transfer to the upcoming general election in the UK.

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In the US primaries, e-voting was considered a resounding success when the Arizona Democrats allowed voters to cast their ballots over the Internet. The poll was conducted by an e-voting company called Election.com, and within three hours of the polling booths opening 30,000 votes had already been cast online.

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The process involved voters being issued with a personal identification number, with which they could log on at any computer or Democratic Party headquarters to cast their ballot.

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Voters, particularly those living overseas, or in the military, as well as the disabled and others who couldn't reach a polling booth welcomed the method. E-voting is now being discussed as the most feasible way to overcome some of the problems that took place in the US 2000 Elections, such as ambiguously punched election cards and lost votes.

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However, the reality is that Internet-based elections, though overcoming some traditional voting problems, pose fresh problems to democracy, ranging from the threat of viruses on the system to the fact that the Internet is still one of the hardest places to exercise legal control.

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For this reason, the likelihood that e-voting will catch on in the UK, in time for the upcoming election, is�slim.

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Web design experts say that the mere thought of building an e-voting system secure enough to contain an online national election is as daunting as�it gets. Apart from the human threat of hackers and vote riggers, the Internet is particularly susceptible to viruses, breakdowns, unavailable webpages, denial of service and an array of other technical faults that could mar an election.

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But if pundits are to be believed, and e-voting is the next step in the Internet revolution, there are some crucial questions that the government must consider beforehand:

• How will the online voting system ensure that only authorised users can vote
• How does the system ensure that a voter can only vote once
• How does the system ensure that the voter's vote is private
• How does the system ensure votes are not changed
• How do the authorities ensure that everyone across the country has access to the Internet if they wish

With the UK general elections possibly only months away, political parties are adding the finishing touches to their campaign websites, yet the era when a voter could cast their ballot at the click of a mouse button, is still many years away.