Not sure if I have linked here to my LSE book review about electronic voting, so here it is.
The book itself is interesting and worth buying, as it cogently looks at the pros and cons of different options for registering votes accurately and fairly:
NB: There is an important distinction to understand, folks, between electronic voting and electronic counting.
An electronic voting system means voters pressing a button or touch a screen to register their vote automatically. This is attractive to local authorities wanting to save money on running elections. But it is fraught with operational and conceptual difficulties - how to make the process secret, transparent and safe from manipulation either by external hackers or by malevolent insiders programming/running the electronic system?
An electronic counting system of the sort I saw in Nizhny Novgorod is simpler. The citizen votes as usual on a paper ballot then inserts the ballot paper into the ballot box via an electronic 'reader'. The votes are counted automatically, but the paper votes are there as a back-up in case the result is contested.
The great advantage of the paper-based voting system is that it is clear, simple and in principle reliable. Ordinary people can see what is happening and understand it. Mistakes in counting are unlikely to make a difference. But it is amazingly labour intensive and therefore expensive.
Electronic systems for voting are accurate and fast but much less transparent. Plus an electrical blip of some sort might change the result without anyone knowing.
As the OSCE report on the latest Russian elections sensibly noted:
Two types of new voting technologies were used during these elections. The first was a ballot scanning system called “KOIB”, the second was an electronic voting system “KEG”, based on touch-screen machines. Both systems were used on a moderate scale.
PEC members in most of the regions observed received training on the use of new voting technologies. The practice of publicly testing both systems on or immediately prior to election day can potentially help build trust in e-enabled voting. However, the absence of provisions for random mandatory manual recounts of the processed ballots is of concern. In addition, transparency in the design and functioning of both systems is insufficient as both types of technologies are based on proprietary software not open to public scrutiny.
Touch screen voting machines were equipped with an embedded printer giving voters the possibility to verify their vote whilst voting. Although this enhanced the verifiability of the process, the fact that votes were printed consecutively on one strip of paper created the potential for the violation of the secrecy of the vote.
No special conclusions. But be very reluctant to move to e-voting if it's ever offered. The transparency and security issues are completely different and not easy to follow...
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