Electronic voting

Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting using electronic means to record or count votes. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may encompass a range of Internet services, from a touchscreen kiosk at a polling station to voting online, and from a local-only solution to a networked system.

Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording electronic voting systems, or DRE). It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet.

In general, two main types of e-Voting can be identified:

Many insecurities have been found in commercial voting machines, such as using a default administration password. Cases have also been reported of machines making unpredictable, inconsistent errors. Key issues with electronic voting are therefore the openness of a system to public examination from outside experts, the creation of an authenticatable paper record of votes cast and a chain of custody for records.