Rushmoor and South Bucks council election pilots, some data

I received this release recently (still digging out from a stack of accumulated email!), which has some interesting data from the recent e-voting pilots in the UK:

South Bucks, which trialled internet and telephone voting and e-counting, had 5,021 people registered to e-vote, equivalent to 11.5% of the electorate. By close of voting on Election Day, 1,902 people cast their votes online and 586 by telephone. E-votes made up 16.34% of the overall vote, suggesting that e-voter turnout compares well against turnout of those who chose to vote by traditional methods. Turnout increased in all but one of the Council’s 14 District wards that were contested, and in all but one of the 14 Parish/Parish ward elections.

Rushmoor, which trialled Internet voting, saw 6,686 people registered to vote over the Internet, with over 57% going on to cast their votes on the web – comprising 18% of the overall vote. Interestingly, 59% of voters who used the Internet voting system to register or cast their vote were over 40 years old, the remainder being 18-39, suggesting that Internet voting is not solely the province of youth – 17.5% were over 60.

Rushmoor conducted research on the sample that used the internet voting system with some interesting findings: of 1104 respondents:

• 12% do not normally vote in council elections
• 96% found it simple to register
• 92% found it simple to vote
• 20% said they have had difficulty reaching the voting station
• An additional 9% were not resident on the polling day
• 97% would use the system again