Internet voting systems pose significant risk to the integrity of the voting process

US National Science Foundation

They also say that the problems of existing technologies need to be better understood before any democracy makes significant changes to the way that people cast votes in national elections.

A preliminary report published by the joint MIT and California Institute of Technology Voting Project looked at existing voting machines, and tried to find out if they helped or hindered the ability of voters to express a preference.

The academics considered the five different voting systems used in the US presidential election:

• paper ballots marked by hand
• mechanical lever machines
• punch cards
• optical scanning devices
• direct electronic recording devices

An electronic voting machine

"Remote internet voting systems pose significant risk to the integrity of the voting process, and should not be fielded for use in public elections until substantial technical and social science issues are addressed," it said.

The security risks associated with remote net voting cannot be resolved using current technology, said the report, largely because this might require biometric verification via fingerprint or iris scan of every person eligible to vote. It cautioned that voter registration processes were already weak and any move to remote net voting could make it easy for electoral fraud to take place.

It also warned that the failure of a large-scale net voting system could have a serious impact on the legitimacy of the electoral process.

"There are problems of authentication, security, privacy, access and cost to remote net voting," said Stephen Coleman, director of the Hansard Society's e-democracy programme and chair of a commission looking into net voting for the UK Government.

Shopping and voting

"There is a huge temptation for people to say: 'I can shop online, why can't I vote online?' That's the impulse of a lot of young people and politicians, too," he said. "But it is not the same as selling apples or baked beans online."

Mr Coleman said he had no doubt that the problems associated with net voting could be overcome but it would be 10-15 years before we could use the net to cast our vote in national elections.

But he said that the net could play a role in stimulating debate, and helping citizens and politicians engage. "If I had to choose, I would rather have politics without voting than politics without argument," said Mr Coleman. "But I would rather have both."

John Williams, executive director of the New Local Government Network, said the technology was only useful insofar as it improved communication between people and the politicians working for them. Mr Williams said British people made over one billion calls to local authorities every year and the net had a huge role to play in enhancing that communication and involving people in local issues.

"The challenge is not about technology, it is about how you manage and change structure, people and organisations to respond to citizens," said Mr Williams.