5 years ago... UK moves towards web-based elections

13.07.99 The UK government is to push forward with constitutional reforms which would allow citizens to vote over the internet by as early as 2001.

The Parliamentary Working Party on Electoral Procedures, set up in January to advise the Secretary of State and chaired by George Howarth, has voted in favour of proposals to overhaul how the UK votes.

The committee recommends "supplementing polling booths and polling stations with automated voting equipment or online voting via the internet".

Mark Powell, marketing director at Security Dynamics, said: "I think it is encouraging that the government is going with such an aggressive timescale. The technology exists - digital certificates - but rolling out in that time will be difficult and expensive."

13.07.04 Web voting by 2001? It seemed possible. But then a lot did in 1999.

There have been various e-voting trials around the world since then - not all of them relying on the web - but the farcical US presidential election of 2000 and subsequent protests about the technology, even from a certain Michael Moore, seem to have set things back.

The original article made a good point about digital certificates but how close are most of us to moving in that direction?