Online voting trial

Stuff reports:

Nine local bodies should know by Christmas whether online voting can be trialled in their elections next year.

The councils are seeking proposals from providers but the big question is whether legislation will be passed in time for the October 2019 poll.

The nine hope to jointly trial online voting alongside the traditional postal poll, with time tight to agree on a system without knowing exactly when Parliament would give the OK.

I hope the Government gives the okay in time.

Online voting doesn’t even need to be a web based system that people worry about hacking over.

You could do it by still posting everyone their ballot paper, and they fill it in manually. But have an option that instead of having to post it in, you can take a photo and e-mail it to the returning officer. They print them out and count them the normal way.

And if you think that is too insecure I have bad news for you. We already allow this in general elections – for overseas voters.