E-voting plans shelved

Steven Clift and Democracies Online Newswire is reporting that e-voting transaction are taking a break in the UK.

Local governments should pursue aggressive "informed voting" strategies online like
South Korea. The scarcity of locally relevant candidate and position information is something that should be addressed. I've always felt that regardless of how someone casts a ballot, the real benefits will come from the information and interactive environment placed around the voting experience.

P.S. I also want to endorse the concept from the "Involve" effort in the UK that notes:

Political legitimacy and active citizenry should both be supported through better use of the internet. But not simply through e-voting. Indeed the current emphasis on e-voting detracts from the much more important notion of e-democracy, between elections. E-voting is dead, long live e-democracy. Hopefully... More: http://tinyurl.com/8afzj

More:
http://news.google.com/news?q=e-voting

From:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article310725.ece

E-voting plans shelved
By John Deane, PA
Published: 06 September 2005

Ministers have shelved plans to test electronic voting in local elections next year, it emerged today.

The Government's move to drop trials for pilot schemes in next May's local elections was revealed in a written Parliamentary answer, published last week during the Parliamentary recess, from constitutional affairs minister Harriet Harman.

"The Government has decided not to invite applications from local authorities to conduct electronic voting pilots in the May 2006 local elections," said Ms Harman.

A spokesman for her department said today: "The Government believes that the time is not yet right to take forward the piloting of e-voting.

"We are not ruling out piloting e-voting in the future and any future plans will be taken....