E-voting

__http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/6600477.stm

E-voting is the use of Information and communications technology, to vote online rather than making citizens gather in one place to do the voting. The issue that is raised in the article is the use of technology and communication to vote in the internet for the political parties they like. However A problem with feeding back results from two online voting stations forced the council to double check no one had been able to vote twice. Although E-voting makes people’s lives easier and more convenient there are still some gaps for errors and frauds in the system.
 * Presenting the Issue**__

As technology is improving day by day, life has been more convenient. From the old paper ballots, now it has turn into an E-voting machine (D.R.E) which stands for direct recording e-Voting system. The D.R.E system is new therefore it is not at its full potential as a result of this, hackers and computer geeks can get into the program to change results. To be able to vote you must have an identification card which contains personal information on. With a paper-based system, the electronic component is usually a tabulation device. This means that votes are counted on an electronic system, which is much faster than a manual count. Some ballot printing systems resemble DRE systems. Voters use a touch screen or similar electronic device to make their choices. When the voter submits his vote, a printer attached to the device produces a physical paper ballot. An election official or volunteer takes all the paper ballots produced to a centralized location for counting once the polls close. A separate electronic device optically scans these ballots and tabulates the results. However the results can be wrong because the government will not know if anyone has voted twice or even more which will make the results unfair. “Critic has again argued that the possibility of fraud is still achievable for example a programmer or a computer geek who has accepted bribes. Connecting two vendor’s systems together may cause either or both to behave in an unintended way. “(Strickland, J and Bonsor. K) "E-voting systems actually provide less accountability, poorer reliability and greater opportunity for fraud than traditional methods. People assume that electronic voting is just the same as other technologies we use in everyday life, like banking or airline ticketing, but there are crucial differences.” (Strickland, J and Bonsor. K, How E-voting works, retrieved on 3 October 2007)
 * __Backgrounds to the issue__**

Around the world, many nations are moving toward more advanced electronic voting systems. The goal of these voting techniques varies from nation to nation. Some nations are attempting to increase turnout in elections, others seek to reduce election fraud.

The impact of the E-voting has made peoples live a lot easier. They will not need to go and queue for along time in order to select the party they like, now all they have to do is find an E-voting machine. “Turnout rise from 29% two years ago to 52% in May.” This clearly shows that it is working however it is costing the government a lot of money but it is said to be cheaper in long term.
 * __Evidences of impact__**

Another impact will be the voter’s fraud. By having E-voting systems enables voter’s fraud to be easier. As computer “geeks” and programmers can find there way into the program and change the results if they like and even we are not yet sure if the company who made the E-voting system is biased or not. “Voters could perhaps be pressured by over-enthusiastic canvassers or might even try to sell their votes, warned Mr Ritchie.” As you can see some people doesn’t care about who runs the country, they can go off and sell there votes however if it was to be a normal voting system, they will be invigilators who checks if you’re the correct person.

By Mick Pilunthanakul