A compendium of inherently wrong things…

A paper by the European Commission “On the European democracy action plan” includes a potentially worrying declaration, of unclear origin, about e-voting:

“IT is used in elections to tally votes and transmit results, or (albeit rarely in the EU) in the form of electronic voting machines or electronic voting. While Member States have traditionally been reluctant to introduce IT more generally in the voting process, the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for physical distancing has prompted renewed interest in electronic voting solutions. The Commission will prepare a compendium of e-voting practices, together with Member States and in close cooperation with the Council of Europe, which has already issued substantial guidance in this area, including on accessibility for persons with disabilities and older persons."

E-voting and especially online voting are, in general, terribly dumb ideas. We also already know, for example from Switzerland and Estonia, that:

• “Using difference-in-differences estimation, we find that i-voting did not increase turnout in the cantons of Geneva and Zurich”
• [In Estonia] “There is no significant effect of internet voting on voter turnout”

That “compendium of e-voting practices” will need a serious reality and “solutionism” check when it comes out. Stay tuned, and if you know something about it, please let me know!

(*) Like this other one, this post is inspired by an email to the Nexa mailing list by F. Pietrosanti, whom I thank again for bringing this to public attention.