THE IRISH electorate rejected the idea of electronic voting, but the paper-based system we put our trust in is completely open to fraud and manipulation. Only properly designed systems based on electronics including the encoding and concealment your ballot can offer any chance of security.
Dr James Heather, of Surrey University’s department of computing within the school of electronics and physical sciences, dismissed the current paper balloting done in Britain and by extension Ireland. He was speaking yesterday during a session on the closing day of the British Festival of Science in Guildford.
Ballot boxes can be stuffed with fake votes and ballot papers can be tampered with, he said. “We have no protection against anything like that. I don’t have any confidence that the system as it stands is secure.” He and colleagues in Birmingham and Luxembourg are currently developing a new electronic or e-voting system that can’t be tricked, will give the voter a receipt, and also a way to confirm his vote was used by checking it over the internet.
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