Why online voting is a bad idea

When I went to university I majored in politics and minored in media.  I took a few different political papers, one of which was Political Participation.  In this paper I learned about, well, political participation.  It was thought that declining participation was due to people not being active in community events to the extent they used to be.  Academics believe that people tend to stay home more than they used to and they don't feel the same responsibility to participate in democracy. 

Academics also think that people don't participate in politics anymore because they are disenfranchised.  There's a belief amongst society that people distance themselves from politics because they don't like the way politicians behave.  These cynical people think that all politicians lie and the world would be better off without them. 

The problem with this attitude is that if you don't take action nothing will never change.  It's well and good to have opinions, but what good are opinions if you're not willing to do something about what the Government is doing?  It's rather pointless.  You may think that by not voting you're having your say, but not voting only exacerbates the problem because fewer opinions are heard.  The United States of America has one of the world's worst records on voter turnout, hovering below 50%.  New Zealand used to be good but has slipped to around 70%.  Australia is excellent which can be attributed to compulsory voting.  The voter turnout rate is over 90% in every election.  The public in Australia are very engaged, often going to protests about various issues.  Even if you don't agree with their cause, at least they're voicing their opinions.

In New Zealand it's a different matter all together, with increasing calls for online voting.  There is a belief that younger people are more likely to vote if they can do so online.  No doubt the Internet Party will try to capitalise on this suggestion saying that NZ needs to move into the 21st century.

Online voting is a bad idea and there are so many reasons why:

1 - It may seem like more people will engage but in actual fact it could lead to people voting more than once or votes being tampered with.  Although it's not flawless that's much harder to do when you vote in person.

2 - There is the technological divide.  Poorer people who don't have access to technology would find it hard to vote and if online voting happens then it could lead to fewer polling booths making it harder to participate in the democratic process if you live in the country or a rural area.

3 - What if the connection times out?  The internet is not flawless, so this could lead to votes being wasted if your page fails to load.  Think of it this way.  When you do an online survey if your connection times out then you may not be able to go back to a question you want to even if you've put in the wrong answer.

4 - It's discriminatory, particularly against some older people who may not have access to the internet.

Although it may seem like it would lead to increased participation, online voting is a very bad idea because it could lead to fraud and other complications that just don't come with paper voting.  The fact of the matter is, some people are disengaged and they'd be disengaged no matter how votes were cast, so it's best to leave the system as is and teach civics in schools so that people do feel the need to vote.