This weekend saw initial results in the UK government`s ongoing project to invigorate public participation in the electoral process through online and other technological means. Voters in two electoral wards in St Albans - Sopwell and Verulam - participated in an experiment conducted during a 24-hour period - just a week before the local election is scheduled to take place.
Most British people are very trusting - sometimes even stupidly so.
Basheera Khan, UK correspondent, ITWeb
The e-voting trial was just one attempt to test a number of electronic voting methods. Here, as in many other countries around the world, the electorate has shown signs of stagnation and apathy when it comes to taking the trouble to cast their votes. Advocates for e-democracy have long claimed that e-voting could encourage more people to take part in the democratic process.
As such, the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions is continuing full steam ahead on the road to secure and reliable e-voting. Despite the fact that high profile members of the IT security industry have pointed out that nothing electronic can ever be fully secure, Britain`s Home Office remains focused on making online voting a reality within the UK. The government hopes that an e-enabled general election could be a reality after 2006.
Said Home Office was singing a different tune just last year - at one point even rejecting the permanent introduction of Internet voting in Britain. However, the e-commerce minister Douglas Alexander came out in public support of online voting by October 2001, and the government has been working with a number of partners since then to make sure that all would be in place to trial various forms of electronic voting by this year`s local elections, which take place on 2 May.
In addition to the online voting project piloted at Sopwell and Verulam, where each vote was safeguarded behind a voter identification number and PIN, voters in Liverpool and Sheffield will be the first to trial SMS and digital TV voting, and parts of Crewe, Nantwich and Swindon will pilot Internet voting from home, local libraries and council-run information kiosks.
Those who prefer to make their mark in person at their local polling station will also be offered a high-tech way of voting, through touch-screen machines. Electronic counting methods are also set to be trialled.
Apathetic voters
The Electoral Reform Society (ERS), however, has expressed concerns at the e-envoy`s push for Internet democracy. The NGO insists that Britain is nowhere near ready for the implementation of online voting for public elections. Not only are there information security issues to consider, there is also the chance that apathetic voters will aid electoral fraud, by selling on their PIN number.
From my limited experience in dealing with the Brits, I tend to agree with the ERS. Most British people are very trusting - sometimes even stupidly so. Even when they`re trying to be `ard, and expecting the worst, they never really believe that bad things could happen to them. When bad things do happen, the ensuing public outcry is one tinged with righteous indignation at best, mild hysteria at worst. The majority of citizens appear not to understand the concept of fulfilling their part of the democratic government bargain, in behaving responsibly and accountably, yet they are all too willing to demand recompense, or at least someone else to blame, when things go wrong.
The British government is taking a huge gamble in trying to introduce e-voting at this stage of e-government development, but for all anyone knows, it may well succeed, and the case studies used as templates by younger democracies, such as SA, in time to come. Even so, I can`t bring myself to be optimistic about seeing runaway success this time around.
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