Internet voting passes its turn

Remote voting, by Internet, many had taken for a campaign promise, 5 years ago. In 2017, the future President of the Republic affirmed, in his program, to want to institute an electronic vote “which will broaden participation, reduce costs and modernize the image of politics“.

On April 10 and 24, as in every presidential election, it will however be necessary to physically go to the polling stations, embassies or consulates of France, to vote. In the era of cryptocurrencies, virtual reality and immersive universes like the metaverse, there is no other way to cast one’s vote, apart from proxy voting, which requires moving before the ballot. We are therefore the opposite of the goal sought, namely to vote on your smartphone: remote voting considered as one of the solutions to fight against abstention. In any case, this is what 78% of the French people questioned thought in June 2021.

And yet, in two months, part of the vote for the legislative elections will be done via the Internet and it will not be the first time. The electoral code was further modified, 15 days ago. French people living outside France will indeed be able to vote by Internet, in the legislative elections, and just before, in the consular elections, on the condition of being registered on the consular electoral list, not to be confused with the electoral list of a municipality. .

For those French people who live outside France, it is sufficient to provide a valid email address and telephone number to the French consulate. The voters receive, on the one hand, an identifier by e-mail, on the other, a password by SMS. And they’ll need both on Election Day to log in and vote.

“Often it takes a first case study to build trust.”

Bertrand Peaudecerf, director of research, innovation and development at tessi

at franceinfo

Online electronic voting will begin 9 days before. And the portal will remain open for 5 consecutive days, from Friday to Wednesday, which precedes the physical ballot, in polling stations. Voters will therefore be able to vote in the middle of the night if it suits them: this is one of the advantages of Internet voting. Technologically, no revolution: “This is a centralized digital vote. It’s digital, of course, but old-fashioned“, shade Bertrand Peaudecerf. “We are still in the middle of the ford“.

Back to the presidential election. What explains that France has not yet switched to Internet voting for the queen of the elections? “The big problem is trust in digital tools“, explains Bertrand Peaudecerf, research, innovation and development director at tessi, who presented an innovative remote voting solution at the last CES in Las Vegas: “to elect staff representatives or for participatory democracy, it is possible but there is still a reluctance for major elections“.

The presidential election is the most sensitive. No one would therefore take the risk, today, of a distorted or even hacked ballot. We must be able to guarantee the transparency of the vote, the secrecy of the vote and its absolute protection against cyber-attacks. “Often it takes a first case study to prove that it works and build trustexplains Bertrand Peaudecerf at tessi. Unfortunately, the first experiments in other countries have not yet succeeded in achieving this goal.”

Indeed, to date, Estonia is the only country in the world to have massively adopted Internet voting. Even the United States is going very cautiously: only soldiers or expatriates are concerned. Norway, which was tempted, backtracked, but that was before the success of the blockchain, this invulnerable technology in principle, which has been talked about a lot since the arrival of bitcoin and which notably allows cross-checking of voting operations. .

The blockchain will undoubtedly be part of the technological solution in the years to come: “We believe in it a lot because the blockchain does not rely on any central authority, recalls Bertrand Peaudecerf. And thanks to the secure algorithms that allow for what we call ‘zero proof of knowledge’, there would be no more data to steal, while relying on technology as transparent as the Plexiglas ballot boxes in the offices of vote.”