I heard Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, in his passionate Harvard speech.I found his speech inspiring me, but I’m really sceptic about digital voting.
Below some pros and cons about the idea of digital voting.Lets take things from the beginning:
In a digital world, democracy is becoming also digital. Applications for positions or other exchanges i.e. certifications, taxes, salaries are now digital.
Citizens away from urban centres can now remotely handle paper work.
People can make transactions with the central State much easier than ever before.
A digital State also urges transparency in transactions and empowers democracy in practice.
We will examine here an option of digital democracy that is called digital voting.
PROS:
Digital voting has been said to be the key factor to maximize the participation of citizens in the elections.
Also digital voting can help in case of referendums that can be done more often using the digital world.
It is a fact that in the last 20 years participation in the elections has been decreased.
Digital Voting is an upcoming solution to people's denial in voting.
Many support the idea that as the digital devices as they go smarter would make digital voting possible.
And as voting from the mobile will be easier people will vote massively.
The Power Of Habit!
people who believe in digital voting believe also that this will increase participation because it is easy and fast and we are using our mobile devices everyday to buy things and this habit will help us execute also voting in a more convenient manner.
Some just say we buy things digital, why not digital voting ?
CONS:
Let's consider some hidden bugs of this proposal - digital voting.In democracy we know that the vote is secret and anonymous.
Let me say some facts about the digital world : for every action there is a copy . Our actions are copied and stored. They are stored on the server and on our device.
There are many techniques to defend the user, random algorithms + pin + password, VPN tunnels - labels, encryption.
Security is there it can and will protect us from interceptions.
But when we go on digital voting at the end point our anonymity will depend on an network or IT administrator and probably on his boss.
And this case is different than banking, cause you cannot cross check it. Your account before and after can be checked by yourself. If a bank will make a fraud against you, you can go on public and because there is more than one bank...no bank wants a bad reputation cause it may risk to lose a great share. But in digital voting usually there is only one technical provider Telecom and IT and this is a risk. Also the end user the voter in this case cannot cross check, so it is totally different than banking.
So if we go for a digital voting, we are going to lose the assurance of secrecy and anonymous voting.
- *But let's get more optimistic and make algorithms, so smart to fully erase tracks on our end device and on the server.
- **Let's also consider that there will be a digital justice system and people with virtue-ethics and knowledge will monitor the process.
-***Let's say also that we hire, as a State, two independent to each other, companies to make the job done and create some kind of competition in security and professionalism and assurance and create higher standards in practice, and be able to cross check the results.
Competition as we saw before in the banking example, makes us certain that no bank would like to rips us off or cheat us.
There is still a problem in the physical world.
Poor people will be enticement financially to sell their vote!
In other words some candidates will try to bribe or Even worse threaten voters.
Or even close friends or parents or family can put pressure on the voter.
Is it done also today? Yes it is. But behind the curtain you can do whatever you want and no-one will know.
So we need this curtain also in the Digital world.
Digital world can give us transparency in governance But we need secrecy in Voting.
We don't have this problem with our credit cards cause we buy on free will and no-one will try to bribe us.
The Italic part with the asterisks was more like proposals, to build and endorse digital voting. Some times being skeptical doesn't mean we are against.
Digital is like magic and we like magic but in the right hands magic is good and in the wrong hands could be the end of secrecy on voting.
Smart Democracy Institute proposal (www.democracing.com):
In Smart Democracy Institute we believe that the solution is positive motivation, like reward to anticipate the indifference of people against politics. Like a lottery among the voters to gain something and to be motivated. Candidate's and Parties have an economic profit out of elections, why not the people who vote also?
In Australia they have done a great job in terms of convenience in voting systems. I think that all countries should copy them.
From another perspective a penalty and also a gradually increasing one, with respect to one's wealth, could be a solution and a good motivation for people to go and vote.
Mini CV of the Author
Nick Koltsidas
BSc Applied Physics with specialization in Optoelectronics.
MSc in Telecoms and Computer networking with thesis on Techno-economic approach of FTTH.
Ten years Working experience as a professional in Telecoms and IT.