Online primaries, split Pd: what electronic voting is and how it works
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An eternal battleground. Ideological rather than technical and political. There has been talk of online voting for at least a decade. And for at least ten years, every time we talk about it, we are divided into those in favor and against. With authoritative reasoning at times. Others using the risks and opportunities of online voting as an argument to defend their positions.
The leadership of the Democratic Party is unable to find a common position for now. And the ideas divide two of the most important candidates for the party secretariat: Elly Schlein, who would like to use an online voting platform for the primaries on the one hand, targeting the younger electorate; Stefano Bonaccini, who at the moment does not want to hear about it, perhaps to prevent his opponent’s tactics from being successful. Opposite ideas. Still being compared. But the debate is still open on online voting. There are many topics for discussion.
Difference between online voting and electronic voting
To understand them, a first distinction must be made. Online voting is one thing. Another is electronic voting. The former refers to the use of an online platform. From which, to be clear, you can access it from your home computer, or from your smartphone. By electronic voting, on the other hand, we mean the use of technologies to vote through electronic devices, to be used instead of the ballot paper. A tablet in the relevant section, or a personal computer. They are two different things.
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Electronic voting has already been used (and with moderate success) for years in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, but also in Australia and South Korea. It is a reality. Online voting is different. It requires higher security standards, because voting is done remotely. Technically, from wherever the voter is, and with a device owned by him. The advantage is immediately clear: if online voting were certain, secure and recognized by all, the numbers of voter turnout would benefit. And more generally democracy.
However, this scenario does not seem close to being realized at the moment. If there have been clashes and sometimes controversies over electronic voting (such as the case of 24,000 tablets bought by Lombardy for the 2017 regional elections), but it can be said that it already works, everything is complicated with online voting. And companies, institutions, data and privacy experts, now even the parties are once again divided.
The reasons of those who are in favor of online voting
There are those in favor and against. Let’s start with the first ones. “There are technologies capable of making voting certain and unchangeable online. They are ripe. And they work.” Giovanni Di Sotto is the founder and managing director of Multicast, the company that owns SkyVote, the online voting platform on which the Sicilian center-left candidate for the race for Palazzo d’Orleans was decided.
“Of course online voting doesn’t solve all problems, because there is no perfect and definitive solution to anything. But today there is no reason not to trust an online platform voting system”, adds the entrepreneur. “In Sicily we got 47,000 people to vote, with identity cards. Today you can authenticate yourself in any way the voting manager decides: with Spid, with the electronic identity card, or with a simple login “. SkyVote, as well as the other companies that work in this sector, creates technologies that allow the identification of those who vote; provide them with a digital ballot paper to place their vote; manage voting security by separating voter identity from the vote itself.
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“The digital seat is similar to the physical one. The phases of voter recognition and the vote itself are separate. The anonymity of the vote? No, it is not possible that it can be questioned”, adds Di Sotto. For which there is no reason to be wary of online voting: “We currently manage the online voting of companies, asset management companies, institutions which together make around 100 billion euros a year between turnover and assets under management. People access their bank accounts online every day with very high security systems. They manage the most valuable thing for them: their money. Given these premises, I really don’t understand why online voting is still being questioned at present. Today the safety standards are very high ”, he concludes.
The reasons for those against online voting
There are virtuous examples. Like Estonia, where online voting has been taking place since 2007. But 1.3 million people live in Estonia. Less than half the population of Rome. “Let’s be clear right away: online voting is a bad idea. It is for the Democratic Party. It is in general.” Stefano Zanero is full professor of Cybersecurity at the Politecnico di Milano. “It is for the Democratic Party because there isn’t much time to make a functioning internal platform. It is in general because if the vote of the Democratic Party, however important, does not have enormous impacts on the national life of the country, a political election does have that effect”.
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Zanero’s doubts mainly concern the management of the voting phases. “The recognition of people must be guaranteed; it must be ensured that a person does not vote twice; the anonymity of the vote must be guaranteed. And all this without talking about possible cyber attacks. We need guarantees and structures such that at the moment the Democratic Party does not seem to be able to provide ”. Furthermore, the teacher underlines again, “what will happen when we return to talking about online voting for policies? If the Democratic Party decides to have online voting, it will be difficult to pull back when it is discussed for other contexts “.
“At the moment, total security for online voting is simply not there.” Luigi Gubello is a computer scientist. In 2017 he was the ethical hacker who discovered the serious security problems at the Rousseau platform. He managed to find a port to hack Casaleggio’s servers. And, potentially, violate its voting operations. “Guaranteeing all standards is impossible. There are platforms that guarantee the anonymity of the vote, such as the open source ones of the Pirate Party. Here, for a party it is still something feasible. For the political elections there are too many unknowns”, Gubello reasons.
“An online vote is something complicated. But it’s not just a technical question. Engineers can fix the technical part over time. Making the grade flawless, in theory. But today online voting becomes an easy battleground”. An ideological clash? “Especially ideological. Like a bit of everything,” she concludes.
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