No to e-voting pilot

I have sought assurances from the Chief Executive that Stroud will not be part of piloting e-voting in next May's elections. There have been problems with previous e-voting pilots, and we would do well to avoid having to contend with any of these.

Electronic voting is being rushed upon voters around the world with little regard for the risks and the costs to our democracies. Many countries already have trials underway and the UK has seen various trials take place.

However voters and candidates must be able to feel certain that voting intentions are accurately recorded. If any doubts do arise then all stakeholders must be able to verify and audit all aspects of the election. I fully support the appropriate and careful use of technology to solve problems and make our lives easier if the risks have been fully accounted for.

I have endorsed the following campaign statement: "Computerised voting is inherently subject to programming error, human error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering. Due to the opaque nature of the technologies involved, which few understand, it is crucial that electronic voting systems provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. By this we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. This must be achieved without compromising the secrecy and integrity of the ballot thus, to prevent vote selling or coercion, the vote records cannot be kept by the voter. It must be noted that such an audit trail is only useful if it is used regularly for recounts to verify the electronic result. Without a verifiable voting system every election is open to allegations which will raise doubts over the results that administrators will be unable to disprove. However an audit trail alone is not sufficient - all aspects of the voting process need to be made secure. Providing a voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for any new voting systems."

Photo: taken in Stroud: graffiti with a message our Government could do well to listen to - we are the most centralised democracy with very little power in local communities.