Concerns Over the Move to Electronic Voting

Chapter 10 - Concerns and Solutions on Electronic Voting Systems Adoption
Managing IT in Government, Business & Communities
by Gerry Gingrich (ed)
Idea Group Publishing 2003

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In practice, as early as 1996, electronic voting was initiated in the Reform Party primary election (Cranor and Cytron, 1997). In 2000, the first online voting was held in the Arizona Democratic primary election (Solop, 2000a). The overall positive results in these elections reflect the advantages of EVS and imply wide acceptance of EVS by the majority of citizens.

However, critics of EVS draw attention to a number of concerns associated with the shift away from conventional voting. Only after these concerns can be addressed to the satisfaction of the public can a transition to electronic voting smoothly proceed. In this section, three major concerns over the usage of an EVS privacy, security and accessibility are discussed further.

Privacy

Under the context of electronic voting, privacy is an essential consideration when voters decide whether to vote by EVS. In this chapter, privacy refers to confidentiality of personal information, which must be maintained, preserved, and protected from outside use. It also refers to their election choices. Privacy in elections, to a great extent, depends on secure information transfer and storage.

A hallmark of the voting process in democratic political systems is that ballot choices are confidential. The ballot should not be able to be traced to the voter by any public authority or private organization. This concern about privacy is echoed in the Clinton administration's "Framework For Global Electronic Commerce" (2000), which emphasizes that security is to be a pillar of Fair Information Practices. Fair Information Practices have addressed the process of online information gathering including notice, choice, access, security, and legislation. Especially to some voters, voting privacy is extremely important. For example, in an electronic voting situation held by Pennsylvania's Montgomery County, one voter even held an open umbrella behind him when he was voting in a public area (Larsen, 1999). Obviously, he was suspicious of the integrity of the protection of privacy in an EVS environment. Undoubtedly, privacy in an EVS environment is an important acceptance factor to consider in any study.

Security

Security is a consideration closely associated with privacy. Here, we define security as the safety of data transfer and data storage. When one considers the consequences of network and database failures that occur on the national or international level, it is not surprising that public confidence in EVS may be a concern. For instance, in February 2001, the Internet linkage between the US and China was disconnected because of a broken undersea cable. Moreover, the Internet is also a host to a number of clever and creative computer hackers. In 2000, hackers invaded the Bibliofind Web site of Amazon.com and stole about 98,000 customer credit card records (SinaNews, 2001). Though it is not certain if hackers could develop effective programs and break into electronic voting systems without detection, this potential threat can dampen EVS acceptance, particularly for online voting systems. Coupling this with the presence of unpredictable and damaging computer viruses that are relayed via the Internet, it is reasonable for people to be skeptical about the reliability of new information systems. It is such distrust that will impede public acceptance of EVS.

In addition, one principal advantage of EVS is that it enables citizens to vote virtually anywhere. This advantage, however, may increase the likelihood of voter fraud. In conventionally held elections (i.e., paper ballots), the voter must be present at the booth and provide documentation of their eligibility to vote. While this process is not immune to fraud, the requirement that the voter appear in person mitigates the risk of widespread vote manipulation. However, in a virtual election environment, there is no poll watcher to ensure proper voter conformance to election law. It is not hard to imagine voting campaign vans equipped with laptops offering money or other incentives in return for votes.

Meanwhile, as it is a highly technical approach, only professionals could operate and maintain systems in local or central databases. Then electronic process and data storage procedures are transparent to ordinary people. Thus, without an effective observation and security system, system administrators or other professionals can easily manipulate vote data under the lure of money, for instance.

Accessibility

Another important concern about EVS is equal accessibility. A serious accusation that has been leveled against EVS and Internet technology in general is the notion of a "digital divide." "Digital divide" means that technology is not equally available to everyone (Turner, 2001). The appearance of Internet-based technology and its increasing utilization represents, some argue, a new form of discrimination against certain groups in the population. Furthermore, this discrimination, if it becomes apparent in the voting process, threatens the cornerstone of democratic government: equal representation. The U.S. Department of Commerce Study, Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide, (National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 1999) states, "the digital divide has turned into a 'racial ravine' when one looks at access among households of different racial and ethnic origins" (p. 8). Other studies find that the factors of income and education have a more significant impact on EVS accessibility than race does (Hoffmann, Tomas, and Venkatesh, 1997; Hoffmann and Tomas, 1999). Considering the diversity of race, income, and education in the U.S., access to EVS, especially an Internet voting system, will likely influence turnout rates among various population groups. Minority and low-income voters are disadvantaged when using EVS. The 2000 Arizona Democratic primary online election was nearly cancelled as the Voting Integrity Project (a nonprofit organization that monitors the voting process) thought online voting discriminated against minority groups from Internet access and filed a suit in a federal district court (Solop, 2000b; Done, 2002).

This concern with accessibility and the disparate impact of EVS in the voting population have led to the criticism that widespread use of such systems may work to the advantage of some political parties and candidates at the expense of others. Will parties and candidates representing more affluent voters reap political advantage as EVS participation increases? On the other hand, will EVS encourage the participation of some groups in important elections more than other groups? The novelty of EVS may appeal to certain segments of the population and spur greater political participation, which in turn may strengthen the power of these parties. Research on this aspect is ongoing; however, one recent analysis suggests that EVS may lead to an increased presence of liberal voters (Hill and John, 1998).

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