Electoral Administration Bill

It is clear that the public value the tried and tested ballot-box polling station—the traditional British way of voting. They should not be forced to vote by other means such as postal voting if they do not want to do so. That is the recommendation of the Electoral Commission; it has been restated twice and it is time that the Government agreed to it. Amendment No. 23 deals with pilot schemes for local elections and states that they should not include"““electronic voting, telephone voting, text message voting, internet voting or voting by analogous electronic means””." The point was made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) that such pilot schemes have shown no sign of increasing turnout in the past. The concern with electronic voting is that there is no proper way to establish an audit trail, so we propose in amendment No. 23 that we should not introduce such measures when there is no justification for them. As for the experts, the Foundation for Information Policy Research has warned that"““the only safe way to allow electronic voting is through machines controlled by election officials that produce an auditable paper trail. Anything else is an invitation for fraud””." Let us not have that invitation. Mr. Ben Fairweather—a research fellow at De Montford university—has said:"““I have seen most if not all of the pilot schemes demonstrated, and have spotted substantial flaws . . . How do you know who’s in the room with someone when they vote and how can you be sure they are not trying to influence someone’s vote? . . . There are serious worries about SMS voting.””" He goes on to describe all the difficulties with that. Let us take the same cautious approach to those issues as the Government claim they want to take. We are concerned that piloting is becoming a serial occupation of the Government. They pilot and pilot and pilot, and then they pilot and pilot and pilot. That has been said before in the debate, but it is getting to the point where some controls should be put in place, so we suggest that Parliament should approve the pilot schemes.