Arguments Against Electronic Voting

ELECTRONIC BALLOT

When to use: Presidential elections, Namibian elections

Where to use: United States, Africa or any countries that need to vote for elections

How to use:

Voters are presented a list of options on computerized screen. A voter registers his vote by pushing a button next to the name of his preferred candidate. The system will record the voter’s selection. The vote then sends to a computerized tallying system. For write in candidate, voters can type the name of candidate in designated area on screen. Electronic ballots can reduce queues and speed up counting.

These are the arguments for and against their use of closed party list ballot:

Argument for use:

i. Increase accessibility

Electronic ballot allow voters that is eligible

Completely auditable

Voters, parties and citizens can examine the ballots freely. They can audit every stages that were taken during the election or even before the election start. Therefore, is any miscounting happen between paper voting and electronic voting happen, electronic ballot can perfume recounts easily.

Argument for against the use:

i. Issues with technology

The voters might have confusion with the user interface. Different machine has come out with different interface and when there is too much process involved in additional step, the possibility of error occurs are increasing.

ii. Possibilities of fraud

There are no guarantee the electronic ballots can produce an accurate ballots. It is possible to manipulate the software to produce fraudulent results although the companies that produce the machine protect their software against fraud. iii. Protection for voters and their votes

In order to vote, voters have to provide their personal information to the system. Keeping voter information safe has becomes the problem and also the voters has no way confirming there votes.

OPTICAL SCANS BALLOT

When to use: Presidential elections

Where to use: United States or any countries that need to vote for elections

How to

CLOSED PARTY LIST BALLOT

When to use: Election for the House of Representatives in a District

Where to use: United States, most European democracies, many newly democratized countries including South Africa.

How to use:

According to Amy, closed party list ballot require each party to puts up a list of their representatives equal to the number of seats offered for the district (2005). The candidates must be less or equal with the seats offered. The rank of the representatives is ranked by the party itself. Voters will vote only one preferred party. One vote from the voters is considered as votes for the whole representatives. The winning representative from the list will be based on the position of the representative in the list.

These are the arguments for and against their use of closed party list ballot:

Argument for use:

i. Legislature includes both majority and minority group members.

Parties are encouraged by the voting system to list out a balances candidate list. Candidate that are multiracial and multi-ethnic can attract voters’ attention towards their party. ii. Election of