Slashdot Mirror
Norway Scraps Online Voting
An anonymous reader sends news that Norway will no longer experiment with online voting:
[T]he trials have ended because, said the government, voters' fears about their votes becoming public could undermine democratic processes. Political controversy and the fact that the trials did not boost turnout also led to the experiment ending. In a statement, Norway's Office of Modernisation said it was ending the experiments following discussions in the nation's parliament about efforts to update voting systems. The statement said although there was "broad political desire" to let people vote via the net, the poor results from the last two experiments had convinced the government to stop spending money on more trials. ... A report looking into the success of the 2013 trial said about 70,000 Norwegians took the chance to cast an e-vote. This represented about 38% of all the 250,000 people across 12 towns and cities who were eligible to vote online. However, it said, there was no evidence that the trial led to a rise in the overall number of people voting nor that it mobilised new groups, such as young people, to vote.
I'm surprised there isn't more concern about the serious and fundamental problems with online voting.
That blog post makes two points, one about vote selling and one about security. I don't see how any online voting system could ever stop you from being able to sell your vote, and that was one of the major reasons for a secret ballot. That pretty much makes online-voting a non-starter right there.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
User satisfaction isn't the goal. A fair democracy is.
And internet based voting comes with some quite serious problems in that regard. In particular, someone can observe and force family members to vote a certain way..
Unless the advantages more than make up for the disadvantages, cancelling the trials is the proper thing to do to protect the fairness and privacy of the voting system.