NCJ Number
196690
Date Published
April 2002
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This study examined the effectiveness of electronic voting in Australia as measured against eight essential requirements that any electoral process must fulfill in order to be accessible and fair.
Abstract
The eight requirements are as follows: timeliness, accessibility, secrecy, deliberation, accuracy, security, authentication, and verifiability. On the basis of the available evidence, electronic voting systems with appropriate technologies could reduce the risks of voting fraud that arise under existing systems. Electronic voting that uses public key encryption technologies could provide a secure system as long as adequate procedures are in place to ensure that cryptographic key pairs are issued only to individuals who have established their identity. This requires that procedures be enhanced for registering voters, perhaps even requiring some form of biometric identification to be used before a key token is issued. As Australia's Federal Government moves toward a digital age in which paper trails of evidence will no longer be maintained, it will become feasible for the electoral system to make use of these technologies as well. Their use may also enhance the democratic process by enabling plebiscites to be conducted more often and at less expense than under the current system. Those who have expertise in electoral fraud should work closely with the designers of electronic voting systems to ensure that the problems that have arisen and been resolved in the past do not reappear in the future. 22 references