Crime Facts Info

No. 29: Electronic voting

ISSN 1445-7288
23 July 2002

The Australian Institute of Criminology has released a report, titled "Electronic Voting: Benefits and Risks", which tests the effectiveness of electronic voting procedures against eight essential requirements. Timeliness, accessibility, secrecy, deliberation, accuracy, security, authentication and verifiability have been identified as necessary for elections to be conducted without bias. It was found that although computerised voting procedures would increase efficiency in the voting process, experts in electoral fraud would need to work closely with designers of electronic voting procedures to minimise present and future risks. Electoral fraud has serious limitations for government and the community; the paper explores whether or not electronic voting is subject to similar manipulation and security risks that is experienced by other business transactions. There is also discussion about how to minimise crime and corruption through a computerised electoral process.

Essential requirements for electoral processes to be conducted fairly

Source

• Smith, R. 2002, "Electronic Voting: Benefits and Risks", Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, no. 224, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.

Full report available on AIC web site: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi224.html