Online Voting Inspires Mixed Reactions

Local authorities trialling all-postal pilot schemes saw turnout rise to an average of 50% in last week's local elections in England, reports the Electoral Commission. In comparison, only a third of the electorate visited the ballot box across England as a whole. Early indications show that electronic voting did not have the same impact on turnout as postal pilots.

The Electoral Commission will be assessing the impact of new voting methods on election turnout as it begins its evaluation of the 59 electoral pilot schemes run at this year's English local elections. (About 1.4M people in 17 different council areas got the chance to use the internet, text messaging, electronic kiosks and digital TV to cast their ballot. A further 42 local authorities are piloting all-postal elections and other innovations.) The evaluation will also look at issues of security and public confidence.

A survey, carried out by Mori for the Electoral Commission, says that 60% of those questioned would vote electronically if given the chance of using a reliable system. The poll suggests that new voting methods could increase turn-out dramatically. The Electoral Commission - set up to increase participation in elections - said 21% of those surveyed said they had not voted because the polling station was inconvenient for them.

A separate poll by ICM shows that e-voting would dramatically increase the number of young people voting and expressing interest in political party policies and manifestos to 40%. But a third of those questioned expressed concern about the security of online polling.

Speaking at a recent event to showcase the e-voting schemes, Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford said: "These pilot schemes are about the future of voting. Not just making it easier for people to vote but making the process more efficient for the committed men and women running elections. The pilots are an important step towards our aim of holding an e-enabled general election sometime after 2006 and the government will be monitoring the impact of these pilots with great interest."

The Digital TV voting service, available on Sky interactive or on cable, is a world first.

Meanwhile, an investigation conducted by the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) revealed basic flaws in the design of several local council websites that would have prevented blind and partially sighted voters from participating in e-voting in during the May 2003 Local Elections.

Increasing numbers of the UK's 2M blind and partially sighted people use computers equipped with screen magnification and text-to-speech
software to access the web. However, access via these methods is only possible when web sites are coded in accordance with guidelines published by
the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, a global initiative concerned with ensuring that the web is usable by people with disabilities. RNIB found basic coding errors on some of the e-voting pilot
sites that would prevent many blind and partially sighted people from casting their vote online.

The Electoral Commission will publish reports at the end of July, looking at how the schemes have been run and what lessons can be learned for future elections. Security, disabled access, and the use of new technology will all form part of the evaluation.

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