Electronic Voting in the United Kingdom: Lessons and Limitations from the UK Experience

Abstract

The United Kingdom aims to be in the vanguard of the e-government revolution generally, and in the development of electronic voting (e-voting) in particular. The government has already promised the UK’s 44 million registered voters that they will all be able to vote electronically in a General Election before the end of the decade. A programme of research and implementation is already underway, ranging from national projects aimed at establishing a standard basis (for example, a standardized electoral register) through to a consultation programme and implementation strategy. In addition, electoral law has been altered to allow local governments to experiment with different forms of e-voting. Government-funded pilots that tested different types of e-voting (among other experiments) first took place in the local government elections of 2000 and were greatly extended in the local elections of May 2002 to include remote electronic voting. Further pilots, that broaden local government experience of e-voting, took place in the local election of 2003 and are expected in subsequent years.