Leading up to the general election, there
was much discussion about the future of elections in the United Kingdom
particularly in terms of the adoption of electronic voter registration,
electronic voting and even Internet voting. This continues to spark an
ongoing debate about modernizing the democracy and bringing it up to the 21st
century. It has been said that the more widespread use of technology in the
democratic process would encourage greater
citizen participation, particularly among the younger demographic.
Recommendations have included the implementation of a two-step verification
process for voter authentication and the creation of a central voting website.
But these are looking ahead to the future
with an optimistic outlook of implementation in time for the 2020 General
Election. What actually happened with the 2015 General Election? The United
Kingdom has made significant strides, particularly when it came to an online
system for voter registration. A last-minute rush saw nearly
470,000 people register online in just a 24 hour period, breaking the
all-time record.
Despite progress in enabling the people of
the United Kingdom to add their names to the official voter roll via the
Internet, such progress was not witnessed to the same extent in other areas of
modernizing the British election.
For Britons who are currently living
abroad, the process for casting a ballot is frustrating and time-intensive. It
takes so long, in fact, that many such individuals could
not participate in the 2015 General Election because their postal ballots
did not arrive in time. This is despite registering as much as two months in
advance for individuals living as nearby as the Czech Republic or Spain. “Large
number of citizens abroad,” said expat voting rights blogger Brian Cave, “have
not received any ballot papers for the election.”
A secure online voting system with proper
voter authentication could have overcome this major problem.
Even when voting in person, the UK
electoral infrastructure faced significant challenges. Some polling stations
had to turn
away many voters who indeed had their polling cards but were not showing up
in the electoral roll due to IT glitches. The voting systems need to have the
proper audits and checks in place so that such errors simply do not occur. An
electronic polling station connected to the central database could have
rectified such issues.
Another fatal flaw of traditional paper
ballot-based voting is the increased likelihood for
spoilt ballots. This was precisely the case in the recent UK elections as
an estimated 27,500 ballots were rejected, mostly because these voters ticked
more than one candidate. Because of the secret ballot, the voters whose ballots
were rejected were never informed that their vote would not count. This “voter
confusion” could be avoided with a well-designed direct-recording electronic
voting machine, as the software would be configured to accept only the correct
number of inputs from the voter.
Looking ahead to the next General Election
in a few years, the electoral officials in the United Kingdom still have a lot
of work to do. Thankfully, they have some time to work out these problems and
to start developing and implementing better, more modern solutions for casting
a ballot. Internet voting, which 63%
of those polled by YouGov stated would boost voter turnout, should be
seriously considered. The UK would also benefit from better systems for the
electoral roll, as well as the move toward offering direct-recording electronic
voting machines in lieu of paper ballots. Democracy can only work when the
infrastructure is working at its best.
