5 years ago: E-voting gets the nod

26.01.2000: Democrats in Arizona are to use electronic voting in their elections for their presidential candidate, despite last week's rejection of electronic voting by the state of California over security concerns.

The Democratic Party hailed the move as the first-ever legally binding public vote over the internet. It'll allow its Arizona members to vote online in the March State Primary elections.

The election is being organised with the help of election.com which has run internet-based polls for businesses for two years.

The company claims its partnership with security company VeriSign makes its procedure safer than any other currently available.

26.01.05: E-voting, of various sorts, is still prompting debate today among politicos and techies alike.

With the shift in emphasis moving from voting online to voting via specially designed machines, the safety of e-voting is still in question, with the lack of an auditable paper trail in particular causing concern to some computer scientists.

Cries for e-voting have even been heard in London, when Ken Livingstone announced that voting by internet, phone, SMS and digital TV could soon be on the way.

Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to have lost their enthusiasm for e-voting of late. 2004's presidential election losers complained of irregularities in Ohio.

Unsurprisingly, e-voting has been know to have its flaws - including finishing an election with more than 100 per cent turnout by the electorate.