In a report launched this month, a network of ‘digital experts’ from the Labour Party’s ‘Labour Digital’ group have included a recommendation that the UK should ‘implement an electronic voting system that allows all citizens to vote online for national and local UK elections’.
The network was launched in March 2014 at the request of Shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna and is chaired by Lord Mitchell, a former technology entrepreneur.
Shadow Justice Secretary, Sadiq Khan recently announced at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester that Labour plans to introduce ‘electronic voting’.
The report entitled ‘Number One in Digital’ makes 82 recommendations in order to ‘make the UK the number one country in the digital revolution’.
In the foreword of the report, Labour’s Policy Coordinator, Jon Cruddas MP says that ‘we are at the start of the internet revolution’ and that ‘the digital economy demands a new approach to government’.
The report makes a range of recommendations including changes to digital infrastructure, education, and business.
The final two recommendations refer to the move towards online voting.
Recommendation 81 reads that:
Britain should implement an electronic voting system that allows all citizens to vote online for national and local UK elections.
The reasoning is as follows:
Indeed, questions must be raised over the efficacy of a representative democratic system that provides little official scope for realtime digital feedback in age where an MP, standing in central lobby, can read the tweet of a constituent who has just watched Prime Minister’s Questions on the BBC’s dedicated online democracy service. The potential digital technology holds in providing data to policy makers, reducing information asymmetries between politicians and voters and lowering the barriers to engagement, must be faced head on, and a future government should consider moving toward an inclusive model of democracy fit for 21st century society.
The final recommendation in the report also advocates online voting, but on legislation in the House of Lords. It states that ‘20% of the electoral college of the House of Lords should be allocated to the public who would vote on legislation online and be supported by an institutionalised briefing service.’
The report estimates that the introduction of online voting for UK elections would cost up to £100million.
Would you be more likely to vote if you could do so online? Let us know here.
WebRoots Democracy 