Digital voting procedures for political elections

Since the 1990s, the idea of computerised elections has played an important role in the discourse on the digital transformation of politics and society – iconically summarised in Al Gore’s quote about the “new Athenian age”. Ironically, the then US Vice President learnt during his own presidential campaign that the use of technology in elections is fraught with numerous problems. The reason for the recount of votes in the famous “Florida Recount” of 2000 was faulty voting machines that had left no clear markings on the ballot papers. However, this disaster (which in the end probably cost Gore a seat in the White House) led to the “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA), a large-scale campaign to modernise voting technology in the USA. A quarter of a century later, far-reaching improvements have indeed been made – although the internet does not play a major role in this, but digital technology has moved into polling stations in the form of Ballot Marking Devices (BMD) and Direct Recording Electronic Systems (DRES). Most ballot papers in the USA are marked by hand, either with machine assistance or with pen and paper. However, the ballot papers are then fed into a digital recording and counting system, usually by scanning, so that they can be counted by machine. In many cases, voters receive a kind of “receipt” during this process, which makes their vote traceable and serves as a guarantee that their vote has been counted. This so-called paper trail is intended to prevent citizens from perceiving the voting machines as a black box – the “paper trail” of the ballot paper ensures transparency and provides an insight into the work of the voting machine. The term Voter-verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) has become established for this process, which is currently considered the standard in digitally supported voting, and not only in the USA.

India, the world’s largest democracy with almost one billion eligible voters, also relies on an automated process that also allows voters to control their own votes. Here, however, the vote is cast via a digital input device, the ballot paper is printed out, presented to the voter and then immediately forwarded to a ballot box. On the one hand, this immediately triggers the automatic counting process, but the “paper ballot” also allows the votes cast to be recounted manually. In contrast, this step is omitted in Brazil, where votes are also cast on voting machines that are not connected to the internet, but there is no paper trail. The electoral process has long been the subject of detailed observation by institutions set up specifically for this purpose, such as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral). The audits carried out to date have come to the conclusion that the printing of paper ballots is not necessary in order to strengthen the security of the process and voter confidence. Digital innovations have been integrated even further into the central political participation process in Estonia, where elections have been held online since 2005 – a world first. Thanks to a systematically implemented administrative modernisation, citizens there were able to cast their vote online over a period of one week in the 2024 European elections and also change it during this time if necessary. On the last day of voting, it is also possible to vote at a polling station; a vote cast there “overwrites” the previous online vote. In Estonia, too, strong verification and security procedures have been established around the elections, with the State Election Office (Riigi valimisteenistus) regulating the actual procedure as a staff unit directly attached to parliament, while the National Election Commission (Vabariigi Valimiskomisjon) takes over political supervision. A strong institutional embedding of innovative, digitally supported voting procedures can therefore be considered central to the successful modernisation of political elections – the availability of suitable technological systems alone is not enough, both political will and functioning governance are required. Ideally, the responsible bodies are equipped with sufficient resources to continuously monitor and further develop the systems in order to ensure both procedural security and support acceptance among the population.

In Germany, however, the use of computerised voting procedures has a chequered history. Electronic voting machines were used in some constituencies until the so-called Wahlcomputer judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court in 2009, but data transmission via the internet was always avoided. The devices used at the time registered votes without paper records and led to a major public debate, during which the Chaos Computer Club in particular pointed out the error-prone and non-transparent nature of the process. From then on, the Federal Constitutional Court set high hurdles for the use of computerised voting machines, which in practice led to a reduction to voting with paper and pen. For the time being, the digital modernisation of elections in Germany appears to be ruled out, partly because there is no strong electoral bureaucracy: At state level, election management is carried out by volunteers, while at federal level, the head of the Federal Statistical Office is also the Federal Chief Electoral Officer qua office and has purely organisational tasks. However, technological possibilities have received a new boost during the coronavirus pandemic in the context of voting processes. Far-reaching contact bans made political meetings such as party conferences more difficult or shifted them completely to digital spaces. Decisions were prepared by video conference and it was not uncommon for resolutions to be passed using digital voting tools. However, to ensure that these online votes were also legally binding, postal votes were held after the party conferences. Currently, the greatest potential for innovation appears to lie at the municipal level – the gradual digitalisation of administration is driving the use of “digital council systems”, which increasingly include functions for communication and decision-making by municipal councils in addition to document management tasks. As these are not political elections in the legal sense, it is these voting processes at municipal level that are most likely to provide impetus for the digital modernisation of political decision-making.

Comparability with analogue phenomena

However, it would be wrong to claim that no voting technology is used in Germany – the postal voting procedure that has been established since the 1950s should be mentioned here. Even if no digital systems are used here for marking ballot papers or counting votes, reservations and problems can be identified that also apply to digital voting procedures. For example, the secrecy of the ballot is no longer guaranteed in postal voting due to the removal of the vote from the polling station – similar to online voting. In addition, the postal voting process is not transparent, as voters do not receive any feedback as to whether their vote has been counted – unlike with a paper trail, which can be produced by machine at the polling station.

Over the past three decades, two key development paths of digital voting can be recognised: Firstly, the use of computerised voting machines is changing the individual act of voting at the polling station. By casting a vote on the device, ballot papers and votes can be better customised (coding as data; increased changeability), which is particularly noticeable in more complicated voting procedures such as cumulation and panache. In addition, it is possible to react more strongly to individual restrictions on the part of voters (e. g. through a larger display on the screen or the possibility of correcting incorrect markings) (electrical/optical transmission and processing). In addition, the electronic storage of votes also allows counting processes to be organised more efficiently and quickly (automation; speed). The other development path is the additional digitalisation of vote transmission via the internet, which can replace voting at polling stations (ubiquitous availability). This gives voters even greater flexibility in their participation in elections and links the everyday digital lives of younger people in particular with political institutions and processes (permanence). At the same time, this form of election modernisation places even greater demands on the control and safeguarding of voting and counting (simplified concealment).

Social relevance

The digital modernisation of political elections is highly relevant to society, even if – at least in Germany – there are only a few empirical examples of this to date. However, an international comparison shows that populous democracies such as India, Brazil and the USA are in a position to utilise digital systems. At the same time, they support their political and institutional embedding and contribute to the emergence of new governance models for the organisation of elections. Technological innovation drivers such as Estonia are also developing new solutions that reflect the changed digital everyday lives of many people and seek to involve citizens in political processes in this way. It can be assumed that, as voter turnout continues to fall, a social debate will also emerge in Germany that discusses the use of modern, accessible, secure voting modalities as an opportunity for increased political mobilisation and participation.

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