Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2017 to Question 9559, on electronic voting, whether he will trial electronic voting for parish or town council elections.

The Government does not intend to trial e-Voting for parish or town council elections. As I outlined to the Rt. Hon. Member for Easington in my previous answer to which he refers: the use of e-Voting raises a number of issues which would need to be considered carefully.

At present, there are concerns felt by many, that e-Voting may not be suitably rigorous and secure, and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud. To provide a system over which there are doubts, for any type of statutory election, would undermine the value of the votes cast in those polls.