There are many and varied cyberthreats afoot on the Internet, and the severity of their impact seemingly increases on a daily basis. But so far, their potential to provoke the collapse of democratized society in the Western world has been based on the possibility they could cause catastrophic failures in supply chains of goods and services.
Could a cyberthreat, one that is in many ways subtle and intangible, be the online agent that ends society as we know it?
According to Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, one of the five biggest cyberthreats facing the world isn’t a nefarious worm or virus. It’s the lack of effective online voting systems.
"[T]he lack of well-established online voting systems is a real threat to democratic nations of the Western world," Kaspersky said in a recent interview with the BBC. He
stated that the generational divide between ever-more-digitized youth and their parents will increase to the point where "the whole democratic system could collapse" because "if there's no online voting system, these kids won't physically go anywhere to vote, they just won't, they'll refuse."
Ignoring the fact that the walk to the polling station would probably do them some good, is there really a need for the election of our governments and heads of state to be reduced to something akin to an X Factor episode to accommodate this apparent threat from the listless digital native?
There is common consensus among political scientists that election turnout in established democracies has been in general decline since the 1960s, most markedly in the US and more modestly in Europe. Globally, election turnout has dropped by about five percentage points over the last four decades.
When one considers the massive impact the Internet has made across all facets of society in the same period, it seems the current absence of a universally acceptable online voting system has not had a major impact on democracy, to date, at least.
The influences on voter turnout are infinite and unpredictable, from an apathetic malaise among a populace at large through to inclement weather.
Many people, when asked why they don’t vote, reportedly say that they don’t have the free time to do so. If true, this is somewhat ironic, given the negative impact on people’s lives that the “always-on” Internet culture is blamed for.
Beyond the human frailties of the voters themselves, it is highly questionable that technology and the Internet are either robust or cost-effective enough to provide an easy alternative for the voter.
Consider the following example: Estonia is generally recognized as the world leader in the use of Internet voting, having been the first country in the world to hold a binding election using the technology in 2005 and subsequently in four more local, parliamentary, and European elections. At the last parliamentary election in 2011, just over 24 percent of all those who voted in Estonia used the country’s I-voting system.
As successful as Estonia’s voting system may seem, however, it is reliant on the mandatory use of ID cards, which have to be smart cards. This requires individual card readers for voters and multiple PIN numbers, the distribution of which has to be authenticated before the voting process.
This may be a practical option if your entire electorate numbers around a million and doesn’t object to a national ID card system, but the cost implications alone in adopting such a setup for most of the established democracies are eye-watering.
Attempts by other countries to design and build alternative online voting systems have met with failure as a result of the more traditional cybersecurity threats that Kaspersky alludes to. Recall what happened when Washington, DC, introduced efforts to allow Internet voting for overseas voters. When invited to test it, security experts hacked the system within 48 hours. To prove their point, the hackers voted Futurama’s drunken robot Bender to head the District of Columbia’s school board.
Ultimately, the digital native’s disenchantment with voting is based less on a lack of suitable technology and more on disillusionment with the craven and anemic political choices they are presented with.
That’s a feeling that they can no doubt share with their parents.
But I would say that the examples you give of successful Internet voting trials are just that, trials. And the number of participants involved have been tiny when compared to the sizes of their respective electorates and often used by military personnel posted overseas thereby solving most of the potential security issues around voter identity.
As such I feel they don't successfully answer my question of whether such systems can effectively and cost efficiently be rolled out for use by the electorate at large. I'd be interested to know if you have any details of any cost projections that have been done.
But the nub of my blog was whether or not the youthful electorate really are disenfranchised by a lack of Internet voting systems or more a disenchantment with their political structures per se.
Thanks for bringing attention to Kaspersky's interview, and his opinion. As perhaps the first pro-Internet voting blogger on Internet Evolution, I have to give him more credence than you seem to. Since blogging here, I have written a book on the subject. I must correct one of your factual statements, "Attempts by other countries to design and build alternative online voting systems have met with failure ..." You only give one example, the case of Washington DC.
While it is true that the DC case looks bad for online voting, lets take a closer look. The system was set up by an inexperienced, amateur non-profit team that mistakenly left all the vulnerabilities in place for Alex Halderman, the white hat hacker, to exploit. The hack took place when the system was opened to the public for the very first time, as its first ever test. It was not a real vote, just a trial, and was not used for real voting. (For more, see http://tinyurl.com/DCin2010 )
Secondly, Internet voting trials have been conducted with no technical or security flaws, that cast doubt on the results, in numerous countries. These include Estonia, as you mentioned, and Norway, Switzerland, France, Mexico City, India, Australia, Canada, and the USA. West Virginia and Arizona have used online voting for their overseas military. The lady in charge of elections for West Virginia, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, is a strong supporter of Internet voting as the technology for the whole country. (See her statement of 6-29-12, http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Making-the-Case-for-Online-Voting.html)
Elections Canada, which conducts national elections, has petitioned Parliament to make online voting the way of voting for their entire country. (See their website http://www.elections.ca/ )
Security is always a threat to online systems, but experienced and professional companies have proven that the threats can be managed well. Turnout increased significantly in several of these online voting trials (Tennant mentions this, and see re Canada, http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Facts )
I'm not especially optimistic, nor do I think turnout is good. I just have problems believing that the Internet is having a depressive effect, given that turnout has gone up in the years Internet use has soared.
If you're referring to turnout in US Presidential elections then indeed their has been an upturn, but from a worryingly low level. Some figures put the 1988 election turnout at just under 50%, the benchmark for a legitimate election. The last couple of elections have seen an increase but US turnout is still far less than other established democracies, whose own turnout is static or falling.
This is an interesting conversation, but it continues to overlook the upturn in voting over the last few election cycles. It seems people are marginally more turned on by politics - at the national level at least - than they were ten years ago.
I think we need to account for the real data, rather than our easily adopted sense of doom.
Academia and the corporate/government controlled media are certainly principal elements in that spin machine, yes! The Internet does indeed do a great deal to prevent monopoly in communication and I believe it is not just our right but our responsibility to use its capability to the fullest, both in presenting information for others and in exploring the resources available to us for research.
Sometimes that means going to the 10th or 12th page of search results, or even further, because the SEO specialists have spun the result...
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