Can I register to vote electronically?
You can’t yet register to vote electronically, but we hope that this will be possible in time for the general election in 2018. The Public Elections (Jersey) Law 2002 already includes a power to enable voters to register ‘in electronic form’ and we are currently working on the best way forward for electronic registration in Jersey.
Can I vote electronically?
You can’t vote electronically at the current time. On the 22nd March 2016, the States agreed to an amended proposition from Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier, which asked the Privileges and Procedures Committee, together with the Comité des Connétables, and other government bodies, to research and trial electronic voting systems to introduce a safe and secure mechanism to enable eligible voters to vote electronically. We intend to amend the Law to make electronic voting possible, but online voting gives rise to concerns about the risks of electoral fraud and how the secrecy of the ballot can be guaranteed, because people will be voting outside the supervised environment of the polling station.
An alternative option would be to introduce electronic voting within polling stations. In jurisdictions where this happens, voting machines print a paper receipt every time a vote is registered electronically so that re-counts can be conducted and the electronic count can be compared with a paper count.
A lot of work and research needs to be done before we can introduce electronic voting, to be sure that any such system processes data accurately and securely and to ensure that the voting public and candidates can be confident of the integrity of the voting process.