Thirty local governments in England tested various technological improvements to voting or vote counting in May 2002. Some jurisdictions used new technologies for the polling place, such as touchscreen voting machines; others tested techniques for voting remotely.

Nine jurisdictions allowed voters to cast their ballots using electronic methods, such as interactive voice response (IVR) technology, PC-based systems and handheld mobile devices via short message service (SMS). Some of these jurisdictions allowed voters to cast ballots from PCs or kiosks in public places such as shopping centers.

"The central government provided funding and overall strategic planning, and the local officials put it into practice and did all the legwork," said Tom Hawthorn, assistant policy manager of the Electoral Commission, a nonpartisan entity that evaluates and reports on the administration of elections to the UK Parliament, European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies.

"This wouldn't have happened if the local authorities had to pay for it," said Alan Winchcombe, electoral deputy of the Swindon Borough Council. Swindon tested online voting using PCs, and telephone voting via IVR in19 of its 22 wards. The 19 wards comprised 126,953 voters.

"Swindon was only interested because the central government was paying the bill," Winchcombe said.

Not Just About Turnout
Overall, the pilot tests succeeded, Hawthorn said, although he was careful to define the parameters of success in this instance.

"The big concept for us is multichannel voting," he said. "There is an acceptance that putting in place new ways to vote isn't necessarily going to raise turnout. We're looking at expanding the range of choice voters have of ways they can cast their vote."

In Liverpool, voters could choose to vote over the Internet, with an IVR system or using a handheld mobile device. In St. Albans, voters could use the Net, an IVR system or kiosks scattered throughout the area.

"Voters who have taken part in the tests have been very positive about the choices being made available to them," Hawthorn said. "Remote voting won't be for everybody, and what we're looking at doing is make sure there are a range of options available so people can pick the one that best fits the way they live."

Though increasing turnout is a goal for English elections officials, the May tests were setting the foundation for future electronic voting.

"If we're looking at these pilots as a sound basis for a longer-term, perhaps six or seven year program of development, then they were an excellent beginning," Hawthorn said. "The will is there. The enthusiasm is there. We just have to identify the best technical solutions to the policy aims that we've got. Hopefully, we can put in place procedures that will allow people to vote using whatever technology that we have at the moment or will be developed over the next couple of years."

One Vote, One Identifier
Building confidence in remote electronic voting relies, in part, on the security of voter identity. For the English tests, local elections officials compiled lists of eligible voters and submitted the lists to a vendor that created unique identification measures for those voters.

"Every voter was supplied with a PIN, and they could use the PIN to vote either by the Internet or the telephone," said Winchcombe. "It was a 10-digit PIN that the voters had to enter as two numbers - one block of six numbers and one block of four numbers."

Officials then delivered the PINs to eligible voters.

"They didn't go through the normal mailing system," he said. "We employed people to deliver the PINs to voters' households. The PIN was generated by the vendor. We've got 127,000 registered voters here, and the vendor sent us a random range of 127,000 PINs."