A worker counting ballots after polling stations closed for the EU referendum in Islington, London on 23 June 2016. The first time I became aware of electronic voting was in Mega-City One, where the Weather Congress collated the citizen’s daily weather vote. Generally, the public opted for hot and sunny, but occasionally a decent shower to cool the place down and wash the streets. It was the 1980s, I was a boy and the dystopian Mega-City One was located, harmlessly, in the pages of 2000AD , the inspired sci-fi comic of my generation. Three decades on, though, it feels as if the time may be right for fact to fuse with fiction and to reflect on how we vote as well as what we vote for.
Our digital lives continue to broaden: Britain is now a smartphone society, and it isn’t just young people who are embracing mobile technology. Last year, Ofcom reported that smartphone ownership among 55-64 olds had more than doubled from 19% to 50% since 2012. Regardless of our age, we bank, shop and find love, something to drive and somewhere to live via our mobile phones, and yet we rely on a voting system that’s remained much the same for hundreds of years.
Electronic voting around the world has taken a number of forms – from optical vote-counting machines, touchscreen-based voting machines at polling stations and online voting using smartphones. Estonia is the country that has forged the most progressive path. Since it’s independence was restored 25 years ago, it has become one of the most sophisticated digital societies in the world.
The country that gave us Skype introduced not just coding, but also robotics to seven-year-olds in 2012, and has evolved in to a remarkable example of just how far e-government can be taken. Whether parking a […]
