North-east town explores use of touchscreen technology

Credit: Wilka Hudson/CC BY 2.0

Gateshead Council used yesterday’s local elections to trial e-voting technology.

Voters casting their ballots at the Gateshead Civic Centre still did so using pen and paper but, once they were finished, were invited to test a touchscreen system. Diners at the centre’s restaurant were also given the opportunity to try out the technology, which was developed by Feng Hao, a professor of security engineering at the University of Warwick.

The trial allowed users to ‘vote’ by selecting one of a number of dummy candidate names. Participants were then asked to provide feedback on the system.

Feng Hao said: “After six years of research it’s thrilling to see verifiable e-voting in polling stations being trialled in Gateshead. Hopefully, we will provide useful case studies to the voting law here in the UK, which is basically unchanged from over a hundred years ago and has not accounted the many developments of modern digital technologies.”