Who’ll win and who’ll lose from the new way of casting your ballot?

In the continued effort to improve voter turnout the Government is staging a number of experiments with different voting methodologies for the May 3rd local elections. Among them is internet voting. These are the different tests involving the internet:-

Rushmoor Borough – Remote internet voting the week before polling and on polling day

Sheffield City – Remote internet and telephone voting the week before polling

Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough – Remote internet and telephone voting the week before polling

South Bucks District – Remote internet and telephone voting the week before polling day and on polling day, electronic counting

Is this something that we should be concerned about because, after all, many of us have confidence in internet security to do our banking online?

The Electoral Reform Society view is that it is not satisfied that the internet voting is sufficiently secure for public elections. Even if it were secure technically, the Society says, there is a risk of interference in the voting process – bribery, intimidation, theft of PIN numbers, etc.

It is pointed out that even the US Department of Defense in 2004 pulled its internet voting system in 2004 because it wasn’t secure. The possibility of the vote being hacked for political reasons is high – either by altering the result or just crashing the electronic voting system must be there.

There is also a technical worry – what happens if it all breaks down. I feel uncomfortable about letting NTL, or whatever it is called now, having a role in our electoral system

My other concern is the same as with postal voting – that some voters might be intimidated into following a particular line which they would not do so with the privacy of a conventional ballot. It is often said that women might be most at risk in certain households.

But what about the raw politics? Is this going to make any difference to the outcome? Which party will be best at getting its cyber vote out? It is always said that increasing turnout gives Labour a benefit – but does it?

Mike Smithson