The false promise of elections on the internet
Matthew Heeney · Quadrant · 2014
In September 2013 the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) released a paper on internet voting at the behest of the Electoral Council of Australia and New Zealand. The paper adds to a body of literature on the question of whether the internet can be the means by which people vote. What is contemplated is that the current method by which we elect politicians, the marking of a paper ballot at a polling place, be abandoned. Instead, a voter remote from a polling place utilises a computer to generate a vote in a computer readable format. This expression of choice is carried via the internet to a central computer maintained by the electoral governing body. At the close of polls an algorithm embedded in software architecture aggregates the votes received and produces a result.