THE CASE FOR INTERNET VOTING
of respondents indicated that they would be likely or very likely to vote via the internet if a secure facility was available. This figure increased to 57% in 2008 and had reached 66% by the most recent election in 2013 (with around 10% of the 2013 respondents ambivalent at worst and only 22% actually reporting that they would be unlikely to vote in this way (WAEC report, 85).
These results beg the question, how long can Australian legislators hold out in the face of the steadily growing acceptance of and demand for internet voting?
Some would respond to this question by saying that the real issue is not voter demand, but the security of voting online. For example in his foreword to
a recent report by the federal parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters the committee chair had this to say:
“After hearing from a range of experts, and surveying the international electoral landscapes it is clear to me that Australia is not in a position to introduce any large-scale system of electronic voting in the near future without catastrophically compromising our electoral integrity…While internet voting occurs in Estonia, it does not mean that system cannot be hacked. With all the internet security architecture available, the academic experts swear they can, and have proved they can, hack such systems.” (JSCEM 2014, v-vi) Not being a computer specialist, I am not qualified to
debate the technical aspects of cyber security. There are three important points that I will make, however. Firstly, maintaining the security of the ballot is an obvious and valid consideration. Secondly, though, different experts appear to have quite different views on the security capability of internet voting.6 Thirdly, any discussion of the security of internet voting is likely to offer up a distorted picture if it fails to take account of the risks inherent in the system of voting that we already have in place. It has to be said that in an Australian context, some of these risks are very difficult to guard against.
Let me elaborate. Unlike many other nations Australia does not have a national identity card. While a national card would assist the registration process in an internet voting system, its absence makes it difficult, if not impossible, to carry out identity checks in polling places under the current system. While there has been little evidence of deliberate fraud at past federal or state elections, the fact remains that in the Australian system activity such as multiple voting is virtually impossible to prevent up
front; it can only be detected after the fact.7
If fraudulent activity were to occur on a scale big enough to affect the outcome of an election, the only recourse would be to run the election again.
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the concerns expressed by the Federal Joint Standing Committee was that people voting online, using computers in their own homes, could be subjected to coercion by friends or family members. While arguably unlikely to occur to any significant degree, to the extent that it could occur the risk is clearly no greater than under the existing paper-based system in Australia, which permits significant numbers of electors to fill out postal votes in their own homes.
Computers used to receive and store votes in an internet voting system would also be no more, and arguably less likely to make mistakes than human beings responsible for handling and counting ballot material in a paper based system (note the loss of some 1,375 votes in the 2013 election for the Australian Senate requiring the Western Australian component of that election to be run again).8 Internet voting also offers the potential to ensure that a greater proportion of votes cast actually end up being admitted to the count. Rates of informal voting (spoilt papers) in Australian elections typically range from 2% to 6%, depending upon the complexity of the voting system and formality rules in each jurisdiction. Ballot paper surveys conducted by electoral management bodies indicate that the majority of such instances are accidental. Unlike a paper ballot, an internet voting system could at least alert electors that they are about to cast an informal vote, increasing the number of votes actually admitted to the count. Under the current system a proportion of postal voters will also not have their votes counted if they are not received by the returning officer within a specified (usually quite limited) period. Internet voting could alleviate that risk, with ballot
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