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The Europe roundup: Should we give eVoting another chance?

Antonella Napolitano | May 24, 2010 - 9:52am | Email This!
  • EU | Should we give eVoting another chance?
    Voting in an election is not as easy as it may seem: during the British election night many people reported they could not cast their ballots. As reported by The Guardian, "at least 1,200 people lost their chance to vote on election night because of bad planning by councils, according to an official report by the electoral watchdog the Electoral Commission which says the entire system of running elections needs to be modernised ". The postal system didn't cause less problems, as some local authorities report postal voting enquiries up by 60%.
    The next question is unavoidable: could eVoting be a solution?

    Public Technolgy analyzed the issue in depth, pointing that "the few pilots that have been attempted in the UK on this from 2000 to 2007 failed to resolve that fundamental problem, and even alas threw up some more, such as too many errors in information displayed to the public, annoying technology glitches and manifold security gaps – from confusing encryption to weak sign-on, according to a major audit of the trials by the Open Rights Group, which concluded, in a somewhat damning way for the e-voting community"
     eVoting shouldn't be considered as an alternative but it may be the next logical step to do to improve the voting system, according to Robert Krimmer, Director and Founder of the Competence Center for Electronic Voting in Austria:

    eVoting cannot solve non-technical problems, but should be seen as part of a wider picture. The UK voting system has a number of specific issues. [...] In some cases, eVoting could have made the problem worse: the problem in the UK was lack of capacity to accommodate the number of people voting; using voting machines can take longer than the old-fashioned system of stuffing a piece of paper into a box. 

    eVoting should be seen as an addition, thought, not as a substitute and the implementation is possible only if people trust the system: precisely for this reason Krimmer points out that the UK would be a good place for eVoting to be introduced, as it has high public confidence in its voting system (according to the eVoting readiness survey). The suggested solution is working on technology and providing more alternatives to people willing to vote: "We should make voting as attractive as possible, and people should be able to use the easiest option for them" concludes Krimmer.
    (if you're interested in the topic, check out the website of the 2010 E-voting conference that will take place next July in Bregenz, Austria)

  • UK | Running an Internet campaign, engaging from the top
    On Progress Online PDF friend and speaker Jon Worth has an interesting piece on how leadership candidates should run their Internet campaign, pointing at engagement from the top as a crucial factor and providing tips. Stella Creasy is mentioned again as an example to follow for her wise use of Twitter:

    The candidate (rather than campaign staff) should be active on Twitter, adopting the same model that Stella Creasy used to great effect in the general election in Walthamstow - developing genuine conversations and interactions. The ‘I don't have time' argument need not apply to Twitter as it works so well on smart phones, and if a candidate does not have an iPhone or BlackBerry that had better be the first campaign expense.

    (note: Worth will be the moderator of the session "Best of Europe Tech-Politics" at PDF 2010)

  • EU | A first look at the European Digital Agenda
    The European Commission has officially published the European Digital Agenda (or EDA), explaining its strategy and policy plans for the next five years. According to some observers, "The Commission has essentially identified the most important areas in the sector. The art now will be to deliver a coherent and complementary implementation of all priority areas to ensure that Europe benefits  from the “sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market based on fast and ultra fast internet and interoperable applications.”
    The document seems to meet general expectations but already shows a critical point: the omission of Open Standards in the document. "The EC needs to adopt a strict definition of Open Standards, along the lines of the first European Interoperability Framework" says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. "Only with thecompetition that Open Standards enable will we tap the full potential of Free Software for European innovation".
  • EU | The power of the Internet for better communication: an open letter to Commissioner Reding
    Last January the internet editors and webmasters in the European Commission wrote an open letter to their new bosses, making a plea for using web 2.0 to better serve European citizens. After a few months Commissioner Viviane Reding has replied to their letter. We are curious to know how it will be received (meanwhile the folks at BloggingPortal notice that "it seems the Commission still doesn’t know how to use e-mail if they’re sending digital copies of paper letters. It doesn’t work that way, Commission!")

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