Disadvantages Of E-Voting

The term “electronic voting” (e-voting) are defined as voting with assistant tools to mark and/or record ballots in mechanical or electronical approaches. Examples of e-voting include in-person voting with direct recording electronics (DRE) and remote internet voting on voter-owned or publicly-available devices. The Hong Kong government has embarked the Electronic Service Delivery Scheme in 2000 [1], which encourages departments to deliver public services online. Currently, 90% of the public services are available over the Internet [2]. As the “e-government” initiatives progresses, voting may also undergo technological transformation in the coming years. A number of academic studies have suggested merits and demerits of e-voting. While some

Since anonymity is an important element of a fair election that adopts secret ballots, the actual voting process must not be monitored at the voting booths. In addition, a reliable voting method must be able to record every vote fairly and can represent the collective will of the voters. As e-voting heavily depends on a completely trustworthy voting infrastructure [3], criminal manipulation at any stage can finagle the election. For instance, hackers may control the election result by replacing voters’ ballots with counterfeit ballots during transmission [4] or injecting virus to client machines [5] for the sake of designated candidates or parties, while the organizations or individuals responsible for designing the voting system may even compile malicious program code or implement system backdoors into the mechanism ahead of time [3]. Worse still, equipped with sufficient technological background, by the classified nature of elections, the general public and election officials may have difficulty noticing any flaws or attacks [3]. Currently without any transparent, independent audit means for monitoring the electronic voting measures, it is possible that election results may be controlled without public knowledge, and may even be influenced by foreign countries or any political groups [6]. In short, E-voting is linked to higher risks in integrity breach in elections; hence, e-voting c be a less than ideal election system for Hong