Putting Citizens in Charge of the Democratic Process

The Handivote system allows people to vote using their mobile phones. Our proposal includes a series of checks and balances which will ensure that:

  • Voting is anonymous and no one will be able to link the vote to the voter
  • Voters can vote from wherever they are
  • They can vote by sending a simple SMS message
  • They can check whether their vote was counted correctly once the referendum is over
  • They can ensure that all votes were tallied correctly and that no fraud has occurred
The proposal makes it possible to conduct frequent referenda which will ensure that citizens are able to participate in the democratic process regularly and not only at elections.


NUT Referendum: Results are Out!


Question: Should the National Union of Teachers allow members to vote by SMS?

Voting Options:
Yes, No, Abstain, Spoil Vote

Publications

  • Tsvetelina Valcheva, Karen Renaud, Paul Cockshott. A Medium-Scale Trial of Handivote. To appear in the International Journal of Electronic Governance
  • Sarah Birch, Paul Cockshott, Karen Renaud. Putting Electronic Voting under the Microscope. The Political Quarterly Volume 85, Issue 2, pages 187.194, April-June 2014
  • Paul Cockshott, Karen Renaud, Tsvetelina Valcheva. Democratising Budgetary Decisions with Handivote. 3rd Political Studies Association Annual International Conference The Party's Over? 25 - 27 March 2013 City Hall Cardiff
  • Paul Cockshott, Karen Renaud, Tsvetelina Valcheva. Democratising Budgetary Decisions via Handivote Proceedings of the International CTS-UNAM-IFPO-WARP Seminar, Berlin, 8th and 9th February 2013. p36-53.
  • Renaud, Karen, and Paul Cockshott. Handivote: checks, balances and voiding options. International Journal of Electronic Governance 3.3 (2010): 273-295.
  • Paul Cockshott and Karen Renaud. Extending Handivote to Handle Digital Economic Decisions. BCS 2010 Visions Conference. 13-16 April. Edinburgh University.
  • Karen Renaud and Paul Cockshott. HandiVote: Simple, Anonymous, and Auditable Electronic Voting. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. 2009 Volume 6, Issue 1 January, pages 60 - 80
  • K Renaud and P Cockshott. Electronic Plebiscites. METTEG 2007 1st International Conference on Methodologies, Technologies and Tools enabling e-Government Camerino (Italy), 27-28 September 2007.

Field Trials of Handivote

Kelvinside Meadow Opinion Poll

Consulting residents about the future of the North Kelvin Meadow and Childrens Wood (The old Clouston St football pitches)

Neilston Opinion Poll

Consulting residents about the future of the Kingston Playing Fields green space

NUT Voting

The National Union of Teachers will be using Handivote to allow their members to vote by SMS