Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to undertake a feasibility study of online voting, following the recommendation of the report Cost of Voting by WebRoots Democracy published on 6 November.

The Government notes the recommendations in the WebRoots Democracy report. The Government is committed to building a modern democracy that works for everyone. The introduction of electronic voting (‘e-Voting’) would require very careful consideration.

The selection of elected representatives for Parliament is regarded as requiring the highest possible level of integrity and, at present, there are concerns that e-Voting, by any means, is not seen by many to be suitably rigorous and secure, and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud. To provide a system over which there are doubts to part of the electorate would not be appropriate. Furthermore, the Electoral Commission in their reports on the 2007 e-Voting pilots found that it had little direct effect on increasing turnout.