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Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice

No. 224: Electronic voting: benefits and risks

Russell G Smith
ISBN: 0 642 24261 5 ; ISSN 0817-8542
April 2002

Abstract

After discussing different voting methods and their attendant risks of fraud, abuse and mistake, this paper describes electronic voting procedures, noting that these were successfully trialled in the 2001 Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assemblyelections. The paper then assesses the effectiveness of electronic voting against eight essential requirements that any electoral process needs to satisfy in order for elections to be conducted both freely and fairly in modern societies. The paper concludes that electronic voting systems could reduce the risks of voting fraud that arise under existing systems, and that electronic voting using public key encryption technologies could provide a secure system as long as adequate safeguards were observed.

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