We have made electronic voting systems for the Netherlands and for Belgium. One of the basic issues for any kind of voting is security and fairness. If voting is allowed from home (or anywhere else) using the Internet, these conditions are not met. Without thorough precautions, someone can easily see your vote on the screen or even worse, someone can force you to vote for the candidate he is preferring. Secure and fair pollings can only be organised in officially controlled voting booths. One could still use Internet technology in these booths; however the big advantage of the ubiquitous availability of the Internet is no longer valid. It is not sure that in the current booths there is an Internet connection available. Setting this up for a one day event while guaranteeing a high level of security is too costly. In both the Netherlands and Belgium we have made stand-alone voting systems where the results are put on floppies. These floppies are transported by taxi to the central voting office where all votes are collected. Concerning the voting college, both Belgium and Netherlands have a system that respects as close as as possible the ratio of the votes for assigning the representatives. This leads to an explosion of small and weak political parties. In Belgium we need 6 parties to form a government, a nightmare for an efficient management.
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We have made electronic voting systems for the Netherlands and for Belgium. One of the basic issues for any kind of voting is security and fairness. If voting is allowed from home (or anywhere else) using the Internet, these conditions are not met. Without thorough precautions, someone can easily see your vote on the screen or even worse, someone can force you to vote for the candidate he is preferring. Secure and fair pollings can only be organised in officially controlled voting booths. One could still use Internet technology in these booths; however the big advantage of the ubiquitous availability of the Internet is no longer valid. It is not sure that in the current booths there is an Internet connection available. Setting this up for a one day event while guaranteeing a high level of security is too costly. In both the Netherlands and Belgium we have made stand-alone voting systems where the results are put on floppies. These floppies are transported by taxi to the central voting office where all votes are collected. Concerning the voting college, both Belgium and Netherlands have a system that respects as close as as possible the ratio of the votes for assigning the representatives. This leads to an explosion of small and weak political parties. In Belgium we need 6 parties to form a government, a nightmare for an efficient management.