News

British government to push e-voting

October 6, 2002

LONDON -- The UK government will bring electronic kiosks, digital TVs and mobile phones back for another round of electronic voting trials in May 2003.

In May of 2002, the government launched its initial test, which it deemed a success even though there's little evidence that it increased the number of people voting, according to ZDNet UK.

The UK government plans to hold e-voting trials during the next three years at local council levels, with the intention of holding an e-enabled general election sometime after 2006.

"Councils looking at e-voting trials must ensure that they fully understand the size, scope and technical complexities of the projects they are undertaking," said Vange Yianni, technology manager at Compuware UK. The software vendor and consulting company has warned the government that the public could lose confidence in e-voting if one of the systems used in the trials suffers a high-profile failure.

"They must be able to guarantee the security of the e-voting systems and also consider scalability issues, as millions of people could potentially vote online," Yianni told ZDNet.