Monday, October 05, 2009

Electoral Commission rebuffs GLA plans for e-counting

Article in The Guardian by Charles Arthur 2 October 2009

The Greater London Council (GLA) have carried out a cost benefit analysis for using electronic vote counting instead of manual counting in forthcoming elections. The Electoral Commission has raised a number of concerns with the analysis including the suggestion that e-voting is "free from human error."

The basic finding is that e-counting will be 40% more expensive, but more accurate and quicker. But the commission report points out that if the extra money was paid into manual counting it might be able to achieve similar results.

It seems that this is a classic case of the benefits of using technology are over-stated whilst compared with the most pessimistic view of the low-tech, but well established techniques.

Andy Brazier

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