Can e-voting problems be solved by SMS text messaging?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 23 November 2007 11:08

Opinion and Analysis

Dekker says that “the acceptance of SMS, the capabilities, the economic benefits, the speed, the responsiveness and more make it a “no brainer” to use this over a purpose built electronic voting system” – and could easily happen before the next Federal election if there was a mindset change in Government and the AEC to embrace the technology. 

In addition, polls and even debate responses with ‘The Worm’ could all happen in real time and have much more precise results delivered.

So, has SMS been used elsewhere in the world for e-voting? A quick search on Google uncovers that Switzerland has been trialing e-voting since 2002, with the Swiss Canton of Zurich’s e-voting system winning the United Nation’s ‘Public Service Award’ in June 2007 for "fostering participation in policy-making decisions through innovative mechanisms", according to SwissInfo.org .

SwissInfo says that “Zurich’s e-voting system “beat off competition from Geneva and Italy, is ready to use and enables people to cast their votes in elections or votes from home or when travelling”.

SwissIngo quoted Giampiero Beroggi from the Zurich School of Economics, who devised the scheme, as saying that the e-voting system can “cope with entries not only from the Internet, but also from mobile phones via SMS or interactive televisions”.

However SwissInfo reports that the Swiss government has “for the time being imposed a limit on e-voting – a maximum of ten per cent of voters can cast their ballot electronically. The thinking is that should something go wrong with the e-voting, this percentage would not affect the final outcome too strongly”.

Beroggi is also quoted as saying that: “This ten per cent limit will certainly remain in force for another three or four years. After this is lifted, other cantons will definitely offer a similar service”.

The edemocracy-forum website translates the essential details of a Swiss Government document in French which covers details of the July 17, 2007 e-votes in Zurich.

Only 17% of votes were cast electronically, 97% of those were done by the Internet, and 3% were conducted with SMS.

In the US, a trial for SMS e-voting to begin in 2006 was cancelled without real explanation, according to Silicon.com .

And in an article from October 2005, CIO Magazine has an update on the Swiss project which went on to win that UN award, as well as information on SMS e-voting that took place in the UK in 2003.

Concerns there included the several hours it took for “voters to receive a confirmation message that their vote had been received”, which caused voter confusion, although those results are from 2003 mobile network and SMS platform technologies, whereas an article from the UK’s Computer Weekly in 2005 says that “E-voting pilots have shown that SMS and e-voting are popular with electors” and is “the people’s choice”, but also said major elections using e-voting would likely not occur before 2010.

Back in Australia, e-voting machines have been in use since 2006 and will be used this year, but the only SMS votes have been for reality TV competitions.

Dekker says that he hasn’t approached the AEC as yet, but as the infrastructure is essentially already in place with Australian telcos, Dekker says that he is “calling on Government to look at SMS e-voting seriously”.

No SMS e-votes will be cast in the 2007 Federal Election, but by 2010 it could well be here!