Steve Schneider, director of the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security, professor of secure systems at the University of Surrey and chair of the IET Working Group on e-voting.

General elections in the UK, with their paper ballots, tend to be accompanied by calls for electronic voting. Yet there are good reasons to be cautious. In the early 2000s the Electoral Commission carried out several pilots exploring modernising the electoral system, which included electronic voting. Their final report made a strong statement that “the level of risk placed on the availability and integrity of the electoral process was unacceptable” and raised concerns around security and transparency of e-voting solutions. No further UK pilots have been carried out to date.

The IET has been investigating this topic since 2020 – bringing together cross-sector experts to explore the possibility of introducing internet voting in the UK. A report published ahead of the local 2021 elections, when discussion about alternative...