June 23, 2003

The Electoral Reform Society, an

The Electoral Reform Society, an independent organization concerned with, well, electoral reform, published their report of the UK's recent voting trials and the news is not so good. Their report on the various alternative voting pilots found that none significantly increased voter turnout. The pilots tested in the recent elections included postal, SMS, internet, and digital TV.

All in all, there were 56 pilots tested on 6.5 potential voters. The report found that, on average, turnouts increased about 15%, but total turnout in districts running the pilots still didn't reach desirable levels. Most of the increase came through the postal pilots, and the numbers are much worse for the technology pilots. Only 3 of 10 districts running tech pilots saw increases, and the those distrcits only saw single digit increases. On average, in those districts with eVoting pilots, less than 10% of those voting choose to use the technology option.

I'll wait to see some kind of official report from the Office of the e-Envoy, but I must say this doesn't bode well for the UK's ambitious eVoting goals.

Posted by michael at 12:07 PM

April 25, 2003

The UK is preparing to

The UK is preparing to enact nation-wide eVoting by 2006. Toward that goal, they'll be offering 17 pilot eVoting schemes include Digital TV, wireless text messaging, touch-tome telephone, internet, and kiosks. All in all, the government will be testing more than 40 different voting methods, with the opportunity for 1.4 people to participate in the pilot programs for the upcomming May elections.

Posted by michael at 5:39 PM

April 24, 2003

From what I can tell,

From what I can tell, Europa is the official portal for information about the European Union. In addition to news, legislation, etc, about the EU, they provide handy links to all official European gov't websites.

Also, they recently released a collection of reports on case studies and best practices of EU eGov initiatives. So far, there are 14 reports from 10 countries, covering local, national, and international projects.

Posted by michael at 12:17 PM