Electronic Voting Systems
Modern technology has made voting, whether in a national
election or in the confines of a boardroom, much easier, and
electronic voting systems have become the cornerstone of many
successful voting operations.
Electronic voting systems solve numerous problems inherent in
the activity of voting. Depending on the scale of the voting
operation and the type of vote, two main issues appear in allowing
a group of people to successfully vote.
Firstly, tallying up the votes can be an enormous task if the
scale of the vote is large, as in a local or national election;
thousands of people can spend days counting the old fashioned paper
votes. However, in many countries these days that are using
an electronic voting system at election halls, the organisers can
easily work out the total of the votes cast for each candidate by
using computer technology.
Secondly, electronic voting systems make it much easier to
conduct a completely anonymous vote in a live audience: as long as
no-one can see the selection being made there is no way of finding
out which choice any specific individual has made. For
example, taking an electronic vote in a boardroom meeting ensures
that the participants in the meeting vote without feeling pressured
by their peers.
Audience
voting systems (also called audience response systems), are
used when the voting process is taking place during any kind of a
meeting or public entertainment led by a presenter. You
sometimes see this used in popular television shows.
Electronic voting is appropriate in many scenarios but is
occasionally criticised for being somewhat ‘uncontrollable’ or
subject to manipulation, perhaps more so in the setting of a
national election – an argument that could go either way depending
on the security of the system supporting the electronic
voting.