FOUR years ago I wrote an article for the Wanganui Chronicle in support of internet voting.
I argued that the Government was dragging the chain on this issue and that it needed to make progress on a much needed service.
Recently, internet voting has become a contentious issue in Whanganui where the district council put our city forward to be part of an internet voting trial expected to cost around $75,000.
Councillors initially supported this trial - pending more information - as part of the "Leading Edge" strategy developed to show Whanganui as the cutting edge, energised and dynamic city we are.
Our council is to be commended for wanting to be innovative. Internet voting will become part of everyday life eventually as citizens expect to be able to vote from their homes, workplaces or anywhere else in the world for that matter - especially younger people who have grown up in a digital world.
There is also a growing need for people with disabilities to have better access to cast their vote.
Taking into account the elderly and infirm, this could be as much as 20 per cent of the population.
Internet voting also has the potential to reduce election costs long-term; provide multi-lingual ballots; reduce errors and produce faster results.
People are starting to object that we in Whanganui will be guinea pigs for this project and we are expected to pay for an experiment that the whole of New Zealand will eventually benefit from.
What concerns me the most, though, is that the internet voting system which will be used is run by a small, private Auckland company called Independent Election Services, whose managing director, Dale Ofsoske, is also electoral officer for most councils in New Zealand.
I have asked Mr Ofsoske for more information about their internet voting system and its security features, but apart from standard information, nothing has been forthcoming.
Whether or not Independent Election Services has the manpower, technical skill and financial resources to run such an important, national operation, is a concern. Whether or not a private company should be operating our internet voting system in the first place is debateable.
I believe this is such an integral and significant part of our democracy that it should be the responsibility of central government to establish and run all aspects of an internet voting system. And central government should also pay for it because it benefits all of New Zealand.
For example, the New South Wales Government spent A$3.5 million to create their iVote system which has been used since 2011 in state elections. This amount of money is a pee in the ocean compared to a government's annual budget, and it would be a cost that local governments could not, and should not, be expected to pay.
By the way, the NSW system is independently checked before and after each election to ensure its robustness.
If our internet voting system was run in-house by the New Zealand Government, costs to protect it would not be an issue, and there would also be the added benefit of knowledge and technical support from the National Cyber Security Centre, part of the Government Communications Security Bureau.
However, what appears to have happened is that enthusiastic local governments, such as Whanganui, have approached Minister of Local Government Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and his Associate Minister Louise Upston, who have gleefully left the matter in the hands of councils, along with the responsibility and the cost - how convenient. This was a poor decision by government ministers and our council should refuse to pay any costs towards this project on principle.
-Steve Baron is a Whanganui-based political commentator, author, and founder of Better Democracy NZ, and holds degrees in economics and political science. He is standing for Whanganui District Council in October.