Internet Voting System

i cant believe you suggesting ni as the pk for authentication. come on guys? how many people throw the payslips away everyday. do you know the number of NI numbers with addresses i could lay my hands on if i hack into the payroll DB of say bbc or dhl etc? i could then sit in china and cast thousands of vote before those eligible voters could even  decide to cast their votes.

Daniel - Msc info systems

This is a good idea, however the problem is how to maintain the intergrity of the votes. Do not forget in most voting system, it is one vote per eligible voters. How do you authenticate the eligible voter?

Proving your eligibility is the difficult part. How do you prove you are what you claimed to be while you are in the comfort of your home. Passwords and PIN wont workthat can be hacked en mass and voting fraud will be committed. Afterall, we get problems of hackers getting into secure bank networks, retrieving PIN and getting away with you money.

The only secure way is to use biometric data of every eligible voter to autheticate them to a valid single vote. If you are going to go to an e-poll center and cast your votes fast an easy over the already set internet- perfect, but how do you provide biometric authentication while you are in the comfort of your home? This is the issue... and untill a way is formed around this, i do not see internet voting for elections taking place at home.

Prince

Vital Data Rescue Services.

Hear hear! I've been thinking along these lines myself. Only instead of just general elections, there should be public votes for even small matters. Every tiny thing could be democratically voted on.

I dont believe though that this is achievable through data.gov.uk and would involve a huge amount of effort on the governments side. However I think something like this is inevitable in the next decade or two.

I absolutely agree – if we really are a democracy this should be done a.s.a.p, we have the technology. I pondered whether mobile phones could be used for this one day as that would be fantastic. Although, there must be less risk of abuse of the system by using the internet. Like you said, a secure government site where you use your N.I number etc to confirm your identity and from which your vote can be registered.

I cannot believe it has not been done already! Maybe whoever is in power is too happy with the votes as they are!

I definitely think this idea should be supported and that the voting system should keep up with technology and with the modernisation of society.

Matt.