Between the voter and the count

A computer system for online voting, by its very nature, adds many factors into the equation between the voter and the count, and there is always the possibility of catastrophic failure, or outside interference. It is almost impossible to prove that the voter holding a mobile phone or tapping into a keyboard is who they say they are, or that they are not voting under duress.

A voting system requires remote clients and a centralised server where a database of votes is stored and counted. Computer systems are subject to failure and systems used for public elections would have to be as solid as any mission-critical system currently in existence, fail-safe, fault tolerant and with in-built redundancy.

Any suspicion of failure of hardware or software components that was not matched by a paper trail would necessitate a re-election. The traditional ballot keeps the paper votes as a record. Computer failure is the equivalent of the burning down of the counting hall and the destruction of the voting slips at a traditional count.

The greatest problems of online voting revolve around the issues of authentication, the secrecy of the ballot, and the security of the vote, and these issues have not yet been resolved.

"Remote authentication is something we've not gotten right yet," Schneier has written. "And no, biometrics don't solve this problem."

Schneier long ago concluded that "a secure internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."

None of the above

The peasants revolt. The campaign for democratic representation in Britain can be dated back to the Peasants' Revolt of the 14th Century, and was eventually won in slow steps through the 19th and 20th centuries. The secret ballot wasn't introduced until the mid 19th century, the vote was conceded to all males over 21 in 1918, and to women in 1928. One-man one-vote wasn't introduced until the late 40s, before which time some employers and landowners were entitled to multiple votes. Eighteen-year-olds were given the right to vote in UK elections as late as 1967.

Yet turnout continues to fall, amid claims that more people vote on reality TV programs than vote for the winning parties in general elections, and that the voters have ceased to care. The young will vote if they can do so on their mobile phones. "Who wants to vote in a dusty polling booth when they can vote direct from the rave?" or so the logic goes.

Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. The answer to the question of why voters fail to turn out to vote are far more complex than the difference between a pencil on a string and the keys on a mobile phone. Free software may provide an answer to the transparency question, but electronic voting is not the solution to poor voting numbers.