HOW THE USE OF ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEMS COULD POSITIVELY IMPACT ON DEMOCRACIES AND WHAT COULD BE THEIR POTENTIAL DRAWBACKS
E-VOTING: OPPORTUNITY OR THREAT? Eugenio Ciliberti ELSA Alumnus
The Covid-19 emergency has raised new issues with regards to the exercise of democracy: in particular, concerns were expressed on new opportunities for citizens to cast their electoral votes in a safe and efficient manner and led to new perspectives in the long-standing debate on e-voting. However quick and accurate this method will result if implemented, there still is some criticism as to its credibility. Initially used in the US, it then spread to other countries such as Brazil, India and the Philippines, as well as Estonia, where internet voting has been used since 2007. In other European countries, such as France and Belgium, electronic voting systems are used in a few districts, whilst in others, for example, Germany and the Netherlands, they were adopted and soon afterwards ruled out after they proved themselves to be insecure and not sufficiently transparent. Despite their application may end up being controversial and causing high risks of fraud, the benefits of these systems should not be underestimated. The most elementary one is that digital technology can be a worthwhile investment: several expenditures would occur to purchase the equipment, train staff, update the software to prevent cyberattacks and secure equipment storage between elections, but the outcome would eliminate cases of multiple votes 36 | SYNERGY Magazine
and guarantee the fairness of voting procedures through the use of biometric identification. Further advantages concern the various phases of the voting process: voter registration, voter identity verification, vote casting, vote counting, results from transmission and tabulation. Digital voting would highly simplify these moments and facilitate the operations in an easy and time-saving way. Also, the use of technology and internet voting would help solve the crucial problem of low turnouts: in fact, voters physically unable to reach the polling station will be able to cast their ballot online. Furthermore, such systems would enable voters to verify that their vote is cast as intended, correctly recorded and counted: they would not have a marginal role in this process but would be at the very core of it. Finally, a relevant position is occupied by the importance of testing and verification of the technologies used: tests would be carried out by independent and competent bodies, as well as by the machines’ manufacturers, with the aim to prevent the possible frauds that will take place. Although the advantages of these methods are many, drawbacks must be carefully considered. First, the vulnerability to malware and other external attacks of the devices adopted should not be minimized: this has been the case in many elections and in the
