Poll shows growing support for online voting

Voters would rather click than tick in the next General Election, according to a survey into attitudes towards voting online released by Touch plc.

Concerns have been voiced in recent years over the drop in eligible voters actually using the franchise on voting day. In last year's general election, the UK experienced the lowest turnout by voters since 1918, with only 59.4 per cent of the electorate turning out to vote. The total number of votes was 26.4 million – the lowest since 1945.

The survey found that 75 per cent of voters would be more likely to vote in the next General Election if they could vote online. Meanwhile, the traditional method of voting through a polling station remains popular with 69 per cent.

Seventy percent of those polled were concerned about confidentiality and how to ensure that the data gathered from online voting was not available to government departments or third parties. Sixty-seven percent of men and women were also concerned about the security of their private information and the issue of such details ending up in the wrong hands.

Touch plc run a number of online communities for cities in the UK including Nottingham, Derby, Southampton and Oxford. The surveyors consulted 516 voters, comprising questionnaires completed by 366 members of the company's online communities and a further 150 street interviews conducted in those cities.

With a national website with approximately 2 million business directory listings powered by a network of 126 local community websites, Touch plc's products range from large bespoke websites and portal software, to domain names and basic web listings.

(GMcG)