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There are numerable benefits to the
adoption and expansion of electronic voting technology for a range of
governmental and organizational elections. For instance, the electronic ballots
can inherently be more accessible to people with physical disabilities or
limitations, because the voting machine can be setup to accommodate such
challenges. The font on the touchscreen can be increased for the
visually-impaired, for instance, and having larger buttons can be easier for
those who may lack the fine dexterity to mark a traditional paper ballot.
Another major advantage to e-voting technology is that it can help to save
tremendous amounts of money.
Indeed, this has already been demonstrated
in many elections around the world. We recently wrote on the thousands
of dollars saved by the Irish Medical Council when it replaced the printing
of paper ballots, along with the associated postage costs, in favour of an
electronic ballot instead.
That being said, it is clear that there may
be significant costs in the beginning when first making the shift from a more
traditional paper ballot to a fully automated election. The government or
organization would need to invest in the appropriate DRE voting machines, for
example, and the appropriate software and infrastructure to handle such an
election. A single DRE machine back in 2005, according to the State
of Texas Elections Division, “costs between $2,500 and $3,500 and
represents a major economic investment.”
It is very important to note, however, that
these costs are hardly linear. There is tremendous value in adopting the
electronic ballot, because the initial investment put forward by the government
or organization lays the groundwork not only for the upcoming election, but
also for many future elections moving forward. The acquisition of software and
code is a one-time purchase and its maintenance is not related in a linear
fashion to the initial investment.
What results instead is the ability to
capitalize on very favourable economies of scale. As a city, district or
country grows its population and gains a greater number of voters, the cost of
the ballots on a per-voter basis are reduced over time. As The News Tribe's Mirza
Abdul Aleem Baig put it, “the increase of the dimensions of the electoral
roll doesn’t increase the price linearly.” The election becomes even more cost
effective as the electorate continues to grow and mature.
Additional ballots do not necessarily cost
any more money the same way that a paper ballot would in terms of printing,
distribution, and tabulation, because the digital ballot can be simply
displayed on a terminal screen or via some other electronic means. Having 20
copies of a document on a hard drive does not cost any more money than having
just a single copy of a document.
By going with an electronic ballot, the
“single” ballot can be far more flexible than its printed counterpart. A single
ballot can inherently be multilingual, allowing the voter to select his or her
language of choice. This is far superior to having an overly crowded single
paper ballot (with the added expense of ink used) and decidedly better than
printing multiple ballots in multiple languages.
Absolutely, there are initial costs and
investments to be made when switching to an electronic voting paradigm, but the
initial investment in hardware, code and infrastructure pays for itself in the
long run with future elections and an increased need to handle a growing number
of voters.
