Headlines: July 15th, 2010

More than two thirds of voters say they expect to vote online by the time of the next General Election. New research from Cisco questioned 15,000 people and found that demand for e-voting will jump by a fifth by 2015.

The findings mirror research from Virgin Media Business which revealed demand for online voting had grown from only 19 per cent in 2005 to 43 per cent this year. Lee Hull, director of public sector at Virgin Media Business, said: “It’s not surprising if you consider all of the problems that we had at last election, with unexpectedly long queues and a shortage of polling papers preventing hundreds of people from casting their votes.”

He said the Cisco study confirmed his company’s view that people wanted the option of online voting which offered a trouble-free alternative to visiting the polling station and made it much easier for votes to be collected and counted. Politicians were communicating through Twitter and the Government was routinely publishing public data via the Combined Online Information System but online voting remained a concept, rather than a reality.

“With demand for e-voting quickly building steam and a referendum on constitutional reform in the offing that looks set to change,” Mr. Hull said and added: “The Government is faced with a real opportunity to change the way we choose our elected representatives forever.”