The first Internet Elections in India have taken place, according to Scytl, a provider of secure remote voting technology. Business View called it a ’major step in India’s electoral history as citizens were able to vote through the internet for the first time ever’.
Internet voting technology was used by the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation for its elections in April. An impressive 77.16% of the registered voters cast their vote electronically from e-voting booths and from the convenience of their homes. A trial had been carried out previously in September 2010 and this April’s elections were the first larger scale elections carried out using the new system of Scytl’s Internet Technology.
Gujarat may soon not be the only state. Other states are also considering the implementation of Internet voting in their public sector elections. Scytl recently opened a New Delhi office, headed by Rajeev Sood, General Manager Of Operations, India. Scytl is said to be fully automating the voting process while ensuring the highest levels of security in terms of voter privacy, vote integrity and transparency thanks to its unique Internet voting technology and audit ability capacities. Scytl’s Internet voting platform is the only one that has been certified by leading democratic Governments in the world such as France, Switzerland and the USA.
While we welcome new innovations and technology in our lives, we find ourselves skeptical about trusting voting: the most important aspect of our democratic government, on the internet. However secure a company may be, we have seen giants like Sony’s PS Network get hacked. In India too, 2010 saw a rise in cyber crimes. If voting can be done via the internet, we have no doubt that it is going to be attacked by hackers. If even one attack is successful, the entire election loses all credibility. We feel the web can be used to aid the election process, like online registration of new voters but trusting an entire election on the internet seems too risky on today’s age.
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