Voters in Western Australia who have poor literacy skills, are blind or sight impaired or are otherwise incapacitated will be able to vote online in the forthcoming state elections.
The state will use the iVote system that has been in use in NSW since 2011. The elections are being held on 11 March.
iVote is a system that allows voting from any device. The software used is called Scytl and is sourced from a Barcelona-based e-voting company.
It was chosen by the NSW electoral commission; the infrastructure, or voting-as-a-service, is done by Secure Logic, a company in Sydney.
{loadposition sam08}After the delay in results being released after last year's federal election, iTWire spoke to the managing direcor of Secure Logic, who said using iVote had resulted in big savings, apart from providing as much, if not better, security as the paper system does.
The system was introduced for the NSW state election in 2011 and used for subsequent state by-elections. It needed legislative changes and the drafting of a raft of procedures.
In 2015, flaws were identified in the system by an academic from the US.
Voters in Western Australia who want to vote online must register before 10 March. They can vote any time from 20 February.
Those eligible to use the system have to make a declaration about their eligibility in order to register at which time they may be asked for identity documents.