Whether voting will be conducted entirely online is a complex issue involving technology, security, privacy, and law. At present, although Internet technology is very advanced, large-scale, highly sensitive elections such as national elections and referendums around the world still rely mainly on traditional paper voting. The reasons include but are not limited to the following:
Whether voting will be conducted entirely online is a complex issue involving technology, security, privacy, and law. At present, although Internet technology is very advanced, large-scale, highly sensitive elections such as national elections and referendums around the world still rely mainly on traditional paper voting. The reasons include but are not limited to the following:
Security and privacy:
Paper voting can ensure the anonymity and non-traceability of the voting process, while online voting faces the challenges of surveillance, hacker attacks, identity authentication, and preventing duplicate voting. High security technology is required to protect voters' privacy and the authenticity and validity of ballots.
Technical standards and risks:
The current network security environment and technical level have not yet reached a level that can fully guarantee the security of online voting. In 2022, a research report from the University of Berkeley pointed out that the technical maturity and risks required for Internet voting far exceed daily online behavior, and the recommended Internet voting standards are difficult to achieve under current conditions.
Real-name system and identity authentication:
Online voting requires a strong identity authentication system to prevent voters from impersonating, while ensuring that voters' personal information is separated from the ballot, which is difficult both technically and legally.
Social trust and fairness:
The transparency and verifiability of online voting results are issues of public concern. Mechanisms that can both guarantee the anonymity of voting and allow for partial public verification must be designed to enhance the credibility of voting results.
Law and regulation:
Different countries and regions have different legal regulations on voting methods, and the implementation of online voting requires corresponding legal support and regulatory measures.
Practical application cases:
Although some regions and organizations have begun to try online voting, such as elections in some regions and community owners' meetings, these are usually small-scale and mostly adopt a hybrid model, combining paper voting or third-party authentication to increase security.
Future trends:
With the advancement of technology and the improvement of network security, online voting may become an option in the future, especially in countries or regions with high maturity of election technology. However, achieving this goal requires overcoming the above obstacles and may require a period of development and experimentation.
Therefore, although the possibility of voting entirely online exists, it is still an issue that needs to be carefully considered and gradually promoted.
