The government is committed to offering alternative methods of
voting by 2008, but this year will be using postal voting and
polling stations. Lindsay Nicolle reports on the preparations for
e-voting.
By the general election after next - possibly as soon as 2008, but
certainly by 2011 - much of the groundwork should have been
prepared for an e-enabled election, offering those who want it the
opportunity to vote electronically. Voting procedures in UK public
elections have hardly changed in the past 100 years, but since 2002
the government has been running pilot projects to explore new
methods of voting to increase voter turnout.
But nothing in government happens overnight. Indeed, the local
elections being held in June in 144 local authorities will take
place in polling stations offering paper voting slips and stubby
pencils on pieces of string, or through all-postal voting. Even
all-postal voting in certain regions has required an Act of
Parliament passed last month to authorise its go-ahead.
The official line from the government is that it is not pursuing
e-voting this year because the Electoral Commission has recommended
that the timescale is too short to prepare for further pilot
projects. Unofficially, councils are saying that government
decision-making and guidance on local elections (for example,
orders for pilot projects and timetables for elections) from the
main body responsible for e-voting pilot projects - the Office of
the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) - has always been late. This
leaves returning officers with little time to do their jobs and
cutbacks have meant there is not enough money to conduct further
e-voting pilots. It would seem that this time the Electoral
Commission has helped John Prescott save face.
Whatever the reason for eschewing e-voting this year, the
Department for Constitutional Affairs, which is responsible for the
overall modernisation of the electoral system, says, "The
government remains committed to the development of e-voting so that
we can be in a position to hold an e-enabled general election some
time after 2006."
The Council of Europe has formed a group to examine electronic
voting and make legal, operational and technical recommendations to
the member states. The council has produced treaties and
conventions that member countries can sign up to, rather than being
bound by laws. Encouragingly, its efforts on e-voting are being
directly driven by the UK.
In future, we could all conduct e-voting via special voting
machines, national lottery terminals or cash machine networks, on
PCs in the home, at the workplace and at public venues, using
digital TV, touch-tone telephones, SMS or voice-activated
software.
Meanwhile, to support a future e-enabled general election, the ODPM
has recently launched the Co-ordinated Online Register of Electors
project, which aims to standardise electoral registers nationwide
and improve data quality, accuracy and timely registration.
Christopher Leslie, the minister with responsibility for electoral
matters at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, says, "This
supports our move towards multi-channel voting, providing part of a
flexible infrastructure to underpin forms of voting that meet the
needs of today's society."
The UK's experience of multi-channel voting to date has been
successful but has not necessarily delivered what everyone has
wanted. The government wants to increase voter turnout but others
are more interested in making elections more inclusive, for example
by helping disabled voters.
The Electoral Commission estimates that e-voting during the May
2003 pilots increased turnout by up to 5%, with about 25% of the
votes cast electronically. However, to keep e-voting in
perspective, all-postal voting increased turnout by an average of
15%.
Christine Lawley, electoral officer at Chester City Council,
arranged e-voting via touchscreens in six wards in May 2003. She
says, "E-voting went extremely well, but it did not increase voter
turnout, which was our main aim. The touchscreens were just a
replacement for the ballot paper, so we still needed polling
stations, but it did mean that the count was instantaneous. I think
the way forward is voting by SMS, the internet and especially
postal voting. That is where we can get the increase in
turnout."
In contrast, Eirwen Eves, electoral services manager at Sheffield
City Council, piloted e-voting to enable the vote to be more
inclusive. Sheffield enabled 173,000 voters - half of the city's
population, based in 15 wards - to vote via the internet, public
access kiosks, touch-tone phones and text messaging, as well as at
polling stations and by post. More than 100 polling stations had to
be supplied with ISDN lines and laptop computers.
Eves says, "It was a logistical nightmare running a conventional
election in three constituencies while allowing the other three
access to different methods. Some problems were encountered when we
tried to run the old and new systems at the same time. This only
stressed the lesson we learned in 2002: that running the old and
new systems side by side does not work."
In the end, 37% of Sheffield's constituents voted electronically.
Eves says, "The turnout was not as impressive as for an all-postal
ballot, but it is easy to look at figures when talking about
elections.
"My dream would be to reduce the number of polling stations and
rely on postal and e-voting. The savings made in polling station
hire and staffing would cover investment costs over a relatively
short period of time."
However, the government is more cautious. Its thinking is that
e-voting is not yet sufficiently mature to be awarded the status of
"a major IT project". Instead, it is focusing on detailing a road
map that will be shaped by the experiences of future e-voting pilot
projects.