On the Side-Effects of Introducing E-Voting

The literature abounds with discussions on the relative security merits of various voting systems, and on whether a move towards electronic voting is, from a security perspective, something to be encouraged or discouraged. Little has been said, however, on whether there would be unintended side-effects of changing the voting technology, in terms of the votes cast. Security issues aside, should we expect the introduction of an electronic voting system to affect the results of the election? This paper attempts to tease out some of the possible effects, by analysing ballot data from the 2008 Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Legislative Assembly Election.