Is electronic voting dead (in Europe anyway)?

My latest Newsweek column documenting the demise of the electronic voting in Europe is online. When Ireland embarked on an ambitious e-voting scheme in 2006 that would dispense with "stupid old pencils," as then–prime minister Bertie Ahern put it, in favor of fancy touchscreen voting machines, it seemed that the nation was embracing its technological ...

My latest Newsweek column documenting the demise of the electronic voting in Europe is online.

My latest Newsweek column documenting the demise of the electronic voting in Europe is online.

When Ireland embarked on an ambitious e-voting scheme in 2006 that would dispense with "stupid old pencils," as then–prime minister Bertie Ahern put it, in favor of fancy touchscreen voting machines, it seemed that the nation was embracing its technological future. Three years and €51 million later, in April, the government scrapped the entire initiative. High costs were one concern—finishing the project would take another €28 million. But what doomed the effort was a lack of trust: the electorate just didn’t like that the machines would record their votes as mere electronic blips, with no tangible record.

One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist or a Luddite to understand the fallibility of electronic voting machines. As most PC users by now know, computers have bugs, and can be hacked. We take on this security risk in banking, shopping and e-mailing, but the ballot box must be perfectly sealed. At least that’s what European voters seem to be saying. Electronic voting machines do not meet this standard.

Read more here

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com
Tags: EU, Europe

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