E-Voting?
It's not time
A lot of convincing is needed before Singaporeans and elsewhere are convinced it is secured. By Seah Chiang Nee.
Feb 17, 2001

Old timers, I think, will probably still remember the suspicions raised over numbered ballot papers in early elections.

They were there to allow the Peopleís Action Party to track down and punish people who voted for the opposition, so went the saying.

People were really scared, especially civil servants and small businessmen who depended on licences and public contracts.

During the last week of campaigning, the Election Commission would go on TV every night to assure voters that no one would know who they voted for and the numbers were to ensure there was no cheating, no duplicates.

For a long time, it didnít work. The fears declined only when the opposition realised the spreading fear was bad for it and started to join the government in assuring voters that their vote was secret.

Can you imagine what will happen when government introduces e-voting. It was suggested as a solution to firstly, registering 150,000 Singaporeans scattered all over the world and secondly, allowing them to vote online.

The resistance, I think, will be thunderous. The biggest opposition will probably come from older less-educated voters who will need help (and losing their confidentiality).

Next it will come from people who fear ñ if the vote doesnít go their way ñ that there has been a technical fault or a security break-in that allows a political party to change the figures.

After the Florida voting and counting controversy, e-voting became a popular proposal until somebody did a survey to find out how the public felt about it.

The result was a surprisingly strong resistance. Only 50 per cent of Americans would be willing to cast their votes on an electronic touch-screen similar to an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) system.

The term for such technology is "direct registered electronic voting" and that 12 per cent of Americans are not willing to use the system.

What about Internet? The survey showed that only one-third of Americans are willing to use it, or e-mail to vote online.

Among heavy internet users (on line at least five days per week) 18 per cent are not willing to register or vote online. Among non-wired Americans, the unwilling was a strong 52 per cent.

In Singapore, many of the IT-savvy people canít vote because they are below the age of 21 while the older folks who do canít use the Net.

So E-voting is probably some time away, but its time will come.

Seah Chiang Nee