A medium-scale trial of handivote

Handivote is an electronic voting system utilising mobile phones and short text messages. Thus, far we have only conducted very limited trials within our own school. In this paper, we report on a medium scale trial carried out in the Kelvinside district of Glasgow. It was used by a local community group to assess support vs. opposition to a planned building development on a meadow. We describe the procedures followed to issue voting credentials, the information given to voters, and the telecommunications and computing infrastructure used to conduct the vote. We describe the user interface made available to the person or groups setting up the poll, and explain how the final results are presented to the public. We detail the mechanisms available to facilitate voter scrutiny to ensure integrity of the vote. A brief discussion of the cost of this scheme, in terms of money and labour, will also be included.