Advantages, Disadvantages, and Impact of Electronic Voting Systems - Assignment Example

After casting their votes, the voters do have not to go back to the voting poll and acquire a stamp on their ballots and wait for the election clerk to register them in a record of the people who have voted. Additionally, Haupt (2004) denotes that the voters do not need to wait for their ballot papers to be stamped by the election officials in order to drop them in the ballot box.

According to Kremer et al (2010), electronic voter systems have heightened security and reliability than the other voting systems. In essence, an electronic vote is conveyed and channeled fast, reliably, and safely into the federal electronic ballot box. As a result, the introduction of an electronic voting system into a nation makes it possible for people to vote anywhere, irrespective of the voters’ residence. Debatably, this also makes voting accessible to people with disabilities.

Electronic voter registration reduces some of the errors that may be present in a manual voting system. For instance, in an electronic voting system, there are reduced voting faults since the identification data of the selected candidate appears on the screen before confirming the vote (Haupt, 2008). As a result, the electronic voter system brings about a sense of integrity and impartiality among the voters and the citizens.

The electronic voting system cuts down and alters the work of the authorities considerably. In this regard, it leads to reduced costs through less personnel required in the voting process. As a result, the electronic voting system does away with such functions as stamping ballot papers and filling the voter register.

Despite the benefits that accrue to the voters and the authorities, Jefferson et al (2004) argue that the electronic voting system has some drawbacks that include security concerns, viruses such as Trojan, and inequality.

Security is one of the major drawbacks of the electronic voting system. So far, hackers are the major security threats to any electronic system not only in organizations and firms but also to the electronic voting system. An electronic voter system operates just like a website or software and can be broken into and modified by hackers (Kremer et al, 2010). Consequently, computers and machines can physically meddle with software that can interrupt and modify the results of the election.

Though the electronic voting system may be accessible to many people, it may be inaccessible to the people who cannot afford the software and equipment for the voting process (Haupt, 2008). Needless to say, people who cannot use the computer facilities may not acquire their privileged to vote. This creates an inequality problem.

The virus can immensely damage the electronic voting system. Though the server can be safeguarded using some operating systems and antivirus, the personal computers may not be susceptible to virus infection, which may affect not only the computer but also its web browser (Jefferson et al, 2004). This may contravene the privacy of the secret ballot, and diminish the impartiality of the election process.