Skip Navigation



Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access published online on March 5, 2008
Parliamentary Affairs, doi:10.1093/pa/gsn003
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
61/2/380    most recent
gsn003v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Kitcat, J.
Right arrow Articles by Brown, I.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Observing the English and Scottish 2007 e-elections

Jason Kitcat and Ian Brown

Elections held during May 2007 in England and Scotland for the first time allowed accredited observers access to polling stations and counts. This provided an opportunity for detailed scrutiny of the use of e-voting and e-counting equipment in these elections. This article assesses the use of these technologies using observations from 10 constituencies and data obtained using Freedom of Information Act requests, interviews with officials, candidates and parties and reports on previous trials. It finds that inadequate time was available during the procurement process for cross-party consensus to be built around the English e-voting trials or for systems to be fully tested. Design errors meant that a very large number of Scottish ballots were spoiled, while problems with ballot papers required a large number of votes to be counted manually. Votes initially missed due to an over-wide Excel spreadsheet changed the result in the Highlands and Islands and handed control of the Scottish Parliament from the Labour party to the Scottish National Party.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.