Graham Coles

UK

Software Engineer

Yes - it would take voting out of the hands of people.

I understand that the whole reason the ballot box system is so open to observation is because it was accepted over a century ago that politicians are as bent as a three quid note and cannot be trusted to hold an election without trying to rig in their favour.

We have already sacrificed a secret ballot to allow for checks on fraud with the ballot box.

Postal voting is a joke. Unlike ballot voting, the last attempt had people in about four areas arrested for vote tampering. It is much weaker and prone to fraud by design. Why would anyone think differently when you have to leave your vote in an 'unattended ballot box' owned by the post office for half a day, then have it handled by people out of sight of public view (and independent observers) before being counted.

e-voting is just giving up altogether. The system is impossible to police, impossible to get right and more than impossible for anyone without several degrees in maths and computing to even begin to understand how it is supposed to work.

The whole point has been missed. Voting should be seen and understood to be fair. e-voting simply removes understanding, makes vote tracing inevitable and lets politicians, or companies with a vested interest in a party, do the voting for you. It will herald the dawn of an era where people don't need to vote to elect parties.

Take a look at the US elections to see how successful that was, they used voting machines that can't even count properly! How can you screw that up, all it has to do is increment a counter ...