 The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 10407, the name of Stuart Stevenson, on electronic and internet voting. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put in. I will ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons down, I call on Stuart Stevenson to open the debate, Mr Stevenson. I see you. Seven minutes please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me start by drawing attention to my register of interests. In particular, my membership of the institution of engineering and technology, the IET, which is promoting e-voting, and to my membership of the Association for Computing Machinery, the ACM, which is leading debate on the subject in the USA in particular. Professor of computer science at Stanford University, David Dill, who is the founder of the Verified Voting Foundation, captures the challenge of electronic voting, indeed any form of voting, when he wrote, that the winners of an election are usually satisfied with the outcome, but it is often more challenging to persuade the losers and their supporters that they lost. To that end, it is not sufficient that election results be accurate. The public must also know that the results are accurate, which can only be achieved if conduct of the election is sufficiently transparent that candidates, the press, the general public can satisfy themselves that no errors or cheating have occurred. Until 1872, voting here was by attending the polling place, orally advising the returning officer for whom one wished to vote, and seeing them record that against your name in a ledger. Many of those ledgers survive today. Is that a perfect system that met Professor Dills' challenge? No. The ledgers often show that, at the end of voting, there was debate as to what an individual elector had actually said, or whether the clerk had correctly recorded his, and in those days it was always his preference. The change to the use of voting papers in a ballot box was solely because changes in the franchise qualification led to a dramatic rise in the electors, and oral voting was too cumbersome. We have today a system that works pretty well that those who vote have confidence in, that broadly allows losers in particular to observe the process and be reconciled to the fact that their loss derives from their having failed to win the argument rather than from the voting system having cheated them. The open rights group says that any voting system must be secure, anonymous and verifiable. Technologists accept those tests, with Professor Dills quoting the ACM. Voting systems should enable each voter to inspect a physical record to verify that his or her vote has been accurately cast and to serve as an independent check on the result. Professor Caleigh Yr Morthy, Head of the Department of Information Technology at India's Baratha University in Chennai writes, Internet voting is about making the act of voting as convenient as possible, while qualifying that by saying, this voting channel introduces risks to some of the fundamental principles of democratic systems. The question that I would pose is, is more convenient voting of value would greater convenience enhance the democratic process? I have heard some people say that people who did not make the effort to get out of their armchairs to vote do not deserve the vote. I take a very different view from that that some have expressed. Every political party and independent candidate for that matter devotes an enormous amount of effort to getting people out of their armchair and into the polling place, but there are three numbers that should challenge us—53, 44 and 34. 53 per cent of those in our electoral role voted armchair in the 2017 council elections. 40 per cent in this Parliament's last elections and a third stayed away from the 2017 Westminster vote. Noting the IET's call for government to embrace the latest in electronic voting, can technology help to boost turnout securely with voter anonymity and verifiable by lay observers? What actually helps turnout? When I stood in 2003, our local voter database had 6,000 people who, in the last two contacts with our party, had committed to vote for the SNP, but who had failed to vote in the two most recent elections. We concluded that we needed to get those people to vote. We spent a considerable amount of time, a huge number of activists knocking the doors of those 6,000 people. We got 4,000 of them to sign up for a postal vote. Typically, about 70 per cent of postal voters do vote. It is fair to say that there is imprecision and some uncertainty about that vote. You can only infer by looking at those who voted in person, concluding how many votes there were that were postal indirectly by knowing how many postal votes were issued, but it is clearly higher for postal voters. In the example that I cite from 2003, in an election when across Scotland the SNP's vote was heading downward, pretty sharply downwards, it is worth saying, our local vote went up by 3,000. You may think about that. We signed up 4,000 postal voters. I assert 70 per cent of postal voters vote. Therefore, I can draw a line between the effort that we made to get 4,000 people signed up for postal vote and an increase in our vote of 3,000. Given that people had 21 days over which they could vote from their armchair, it may have been one of the reasons why our vote shot up. Of course, it was the excellent candidate and the terrific campaign that was run in Buckingham that made its own contribution to the result, but I think that process, as well, may be easier to vote. Have countries that have adopted internet voting seen benefits? Do their systems meet the tests of security, anonymity and verifiability? There are pretty mixed results, but there is some substantial evidence of increased voting. University of Eindhoven researchers De Vries and Boxlag assessed the Estonian system and the Dutch internet voting system using eight criteria, which, essentially, encompass the three that I have already referred to. Estonia generally regarded as the most advanced online country after the cyberattack from the Russians shortly after it became independent, did not meet the open right group's three tests. It only met two of them and passed only half of the Eindhoven researchers' criteria. The Dutch system met only one of the researchers' eight tests and that very marginally. The key difficulty in any electronically aided voting system is verification. Allowing the observation of every step in the process from voter registration through voting and counting votes to the final result determination. Is this an unsolvable problem? No, but it probably, at present, is a problem not yet solved. In my remaining 100 words, I cannot describe my solution, which leaves paper as the medium for each voter's vote, which is submitted for counting but allows submission securely from smartphone to counting centre, and is able to be verified by voter and observers. Submission to the Government's consultation closes on Monday. I am sure that the minister will make some reference to that. You will be able to read my submission to electionsteam at gov.scot. When I publish it on Monday on my website at i-voting.stuartsteamson.scot, I hope that you will all make your contribution as well. There are seven unsolvable maths problems, the millennium problems. Solve one of these and you win a million dollars. The problem that we are faced here looks rather simpler than any of them. I am working on one of the millennium ones, the queen's problem. I think that I am halfway there, but this problem, by comparison, is by no means an unsolvable problem, Presiding Officer. I just advise you that you benefited from a fault in the electronic clock going on. You got an extra two minutes. It did not seem to notice, but never mind. We are back to the right timings now. I call Jamie Halcro Johnston to be followed by Alec Rowley. Mr Halcro Johnston, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am tempted to start with referring back to the problems of voting systems and electronics. I congratulate Stuart Stevenson on bringing forward this debate. It is an issue that clearly has significant implications for our electoral system. In a democracy, our voting methods are important, and today's motion refers back to the ballot act of 1872, which calls after the second reform act to ensure a secret ballot. Many of the principles remain the same today, that we have a thorough system that is anonymous, secure and guards against electoral fraud. Some of the issues around those principles have arisen in relation to postal voting, where we now have a system that essentially provides postal votes on demand. There have been undoubtedly some problems, but they are thankfully small-scale. However, personation, the offence of voting as another person, has gradually reappeared, having all but died off in the 19th century. In my own region, a number of the remote island communities already operate universal postal voting. This enables election results to be delivered in good time, despite the challenges of geography. It is possible to see some potential benefits of electronic voting in these circumstances if a robust system could be found. We need not think of that simply in terms of people using computers in their homes or voting through mobile phones. Positive outcomes could be achieved without compromising security by electronic voting through new, more remote polling stations, where activities could continue to be monitored. A number of the concerns that have been raised with me relate to the confirmation of identity, but also to the additional opportunities for undue influence that electronic voting may bring. Those are not so much technological challenges as social ones. The idea of people together in a group environment on mobile phones receiving pressure to vote on the spot and subject to an influence of a crowd. Problems of this nature raise complicated questions. What, for example, if a person wishes to change their vote, should that be enabled? Should there be a last vote count system in place? Will that impact on political campaigning? Or does it have a psychological impact on how people will in the end vote? That is a serious subject, and I would merit further debate going forward. One of the concerns that I have with Stuart Stevenson's motion is the suggestion that a switch-over could help reduce costs. I appreciate that there is an inclination in motions to list potential positives, but I do not think that we will be considering electronic voting as democracy on the cheap. As I have outlined, there are possibilities around those proposals, but some may in fact cost as much if not more to administer correctly. If voter flexibility can be provided, it may be worth paying a little more, but I would not wish to see any attempt to change the voting system where cost-saving is put in front of centre. Our existing system is not perfect, but we should take time to consider the impact of changing long-held traditions. The Times columnist and former MP Matthew Parris once described our village halls, schools and other polling places as small cathedrals of democracy. I may be a bit of an electoral geek on this, but I still get a buzz every time I go into a polling station, because voting on some level combines society together, and there is perhaps a physical element too. If you look at those places where voting has been denied over a long period, you will find that people will queue for many hours sometimes to have the chance to vote, sometimes in dangerous conditions. Those queues are a physical embodiment of democracy being practised, and while we do not have queues necessarily in this country in most elections, we lose that physical embodiment of democracy if we make voting as simple as that, voting for x-factor, celeb or some other, maybe even bake-off. I would also question whether making a vote easier will actually mean more people will vote. I have always been surprised by the number of older people who do not vote and have never voted, and even young people who are spoken with about why they may not vote have said that it is not a question of ease, it is a question of engagement, and that goes wider than just young people as well. As much as the technical hurdles must be considered, I would invite members to give some of the other hurdles as well. We should not be any illusions that the potentially enormous changes that electronic voting would create to our voting system, and if we wish to make changes to how we vote, we must ensure that we get them right. Thank you very much. I call Alex Rowley to be followed by Tom Arthur. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I apologise at the beginning to you that I will be unable to stay for a whole debate because I have a constituency engagement in Fife. Presiding Officer, I congratulate Stuart Stevenson for securing us to be in Parliament today, and I want to support the principle that anything that we can do to encourage people to vote and make it easier for them to do so is, in my view, a good thing. I come from a local government background, and it can be very disappointing when you know how important local government is to everyday life to have some of the lowest turnouts for council elections. That is why the subject is one that is often discussed in council chambers up and down Scotland. I would want to be honest and say that I do not see electronic and internet voting as a panacea to address in low turnout, but I certainly think that it is worth further consideration along with other methods of good practice that can be picked up from many other countries. Earlier this week, I got an email from a constituent who was very concerned about electronic voting, and I replied to him saying that I had an open mind. He was very worried about the security of such systems and the ability for the election to be rigged—very real concerns, it seems to me. I noted that in Estonia, which has been one of the most successful countries in the use of e-voting, it says that a crucial part of that system is the online voting that is linked to the country's state-of-the-art electronic identity cards, carried by every citizen and every resident. We know from experience that identity cards were not popular when they were muted for introduction in the UK, so it would be very important to know what introducing a successful electronic voting system would require and what the impact of that would be on the general public. The point about identity cards was also made by the Professor of Security at the University of Surrey, Professor Stephen Schneider, who says that the success of Estonia's system lies in the fact that it was built from the ground up, supported by a solid infrastructure, including the digital identification system. Given our track record with IT projects in this country, that would also be a major concern. I note that, in the Netherlands, they used electronic voting but have returned to paper voting, and in Norway, where they tested eye voting, they decided to discontinue that system. France has also said that it has concerns with cyber security. So, if you are enthusiastic about electronic voting, I would have to say that there are major concerns and obstacles that are very legitimate, and that is why I do not think that we will be moving in this direction anytime soon. We are seeing many concerns being raised about technology and how technology can be used to distort democratic processes, and until many of those issues and concerns can be addressed, that is not the way that I would want to go. In conclusion, what I would say is that, last Thursday in the Clackmannan by-election, I am sure that many of the candidates and others there would have been happy to have electronic voting, given that the voting took place through a red warning for the whole day. That said, you might just say common sense should be applied. I am grateful for your opportunity to speak in this debate, and I would like to begin by thanking my colleague Stuart Stevenson for bringing the issue to the chamber. Much of what I was going to say was already thoroughly covered by Stuart in the way in which he tends to cover every possible aspect of a debate in a speech. I am going to utilise a piece of advice that he gave me that, in a debate, the debate is not over when everything is said, but only once everybody has said it. I would like to refer him on his divulging postal vote strategy. It is not something that I think we should be necessarily sharing with opposition parties, so perhaps if the official report would like to excise that from the record, I would be most grateful. I must admit that I come to this debate certainly with an open mind in regard to electronic voting, and obviously that is an umbrella term that captures online voting, internet voting and electronic counting. I think that there are very strong arguments, both for and against. I am grateful for the submission and open rights that are made available on their website. I think that they are the ones that they have made to the Scottish Government. There are a lot of issues that have already been touched on. On where I think that e-voting can be positive, online voting would be the ease and accessibility with which it would allow people to engage with the democratic process. Certainly my own party in terms of candidate selection uses electronic voting, and that is a very effective way of doing it. It also allows people to, when presented with options to vote, they can easily see that adjacent to information on the candidate or, indeed, if it was to be for national elections for political parties. Sometimes, for people who are only engaged further in politics at elections, they can go in and some of the issues can be quite vague, and others have campaign material within actual polling places, so there are opportunities there in allowing people to properly evaluate. There are also certainly online electronic voting would facility other voting methods, such as STV, to be counted and verified far quicker. I also recognise many of the arguments against it. The key one for me is the challenge and difficulty in auditing clearly electronic voting and the various mechanisms of security that would be required to create a level of opacity, which is only a technical expert with the capacities of someone like Stuart Stevenson who could accurately discern. Fundamentally, for the democracy, is the capability of any person without that expertise to be able to evaluate and discern. There is nothing more straightforward than whether there is a cross of a number on a ballot paper, and I think that that is important. Obviously, issues of personation, privacy and so on are very relevant as well, including concerns with potentially vote selling, but those are behavioural and there are aspects to how that could be mitigated. Clearly, a big concern in the present day and age is that of foreign interference. The kind of on-going investigations in the United States are testament to that, and it is not just simply that experts could necessarily be convinced of the security and safety of these systems, but the general public has to be as well, and the confidence in the system has to be unimpeachable. The balance that I would probably suggest to you, where I stand at the moment, is probably around e-counting, which I think is a very useful mechanism. It certainly works very well in local elections, the idea of trying to do an STV calculation by hand. I do not think that anyone would welcome that. I think that it is something that we could potentially look at for parliamentary elections to this place and, indeed, to Westminster, if that Parliament would so wish to consider. It certainly would expedite the process. I think that it would be very beneficial for the staff at half the time to spend long hours in drafty halls. It would be beneficial to all of us as candidates, because it would shorten that period of having to wait in the uncertainty that goes with it. I want to thank Stewart Stevenson for bringing us a very interesting debate to the Parliament. Thank you very much. I will call Patrick Harvie to be followed by Ruth Maguire. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am glad to have the chance to participate in this debate. I apologise to Mr Halgro Johnson for missing part of his speech. It has been a long afternoon in the chamber for me. I will leave it at that. I just emphasise that my party has not yet adopted any policy on the question of online or internet or e-voting, so I am speaking from a personal capacity only. However, I have to say that I would be very concerned if we were to go down the route of a trial of those systems. Members are aware that I have circulated an email to that effect already that I am a member of the open rights group. I was happy to host them last week. Sadly, that was on the red weather warning day, so not all members who wanted to be there for the briefing event were able to, but I have circulated some of their briefing material to members by email. Just to run through some of the key concerns that the open rights group set out, there is a three-way test of having a system that is secure, anonymous and verifiable. There is not much else that needs to meet this kind of test. People do ask, well, I do my banking online, I can file my tax return online. Those things do not need to be anonymous. In fact, they require not to be anonymous. Other things might need to be anonymous, but they do not need to be so secure. To achieve all three of those, the open rights group described that as an unsolvable problem. They argue that seeking to strengthen one or two of those factors in any system of online or internet voting would almost inevitably weaken the third. I do not know whether that is a theoretically unsolvable problem. I am not enough of a technical expert to know whether that is theoretically unsolvable, but I can see pretty clearly that the more complex and the higher theoretical the solution needs to be, the less comprehensible it is to most voters. A piece of paper with a mark on it, put into a metal or a plastic box with a physical secure tag on it, carried from one room in one building to another room in another building, opened in front of people's eyes, counted physically, everyone can see, everyone has a tangible sense of the security, the verifiability and the trust that there can be in that system. The more complex and the more theoretical and the more technological a solution is necessary to achieve that high standard of security, anonymity and verifiability, the less trust a great many people will have in that system. I also had to ask what are we trying to fix by doing this. It has been asserted that this is a way of increasing turnout. According to the research that members have access to under the open rights groups briefing, analysis has been done of countries like Estonia, which has been conducting internet voting for a number of years, since 2007, in fact, a fairly substantial amount of data about how that system has worked. They have concluded that there isn't actually strong evidence of an increase in turnout, the uptake tends to be from people who are more likely to vote anyway. I have to suggest that there are a whole host of other options that we should be exploring first if we are concerned as we should be about turnout. Reducing the voting age to 16 was a good step, getting high quality, creative, engaging citizenship education in our schools year after year, election after election, will help to drive up turnout. A whole host of other methods can increase turnout. That would be way down the list of priorities, even if there were not concerns around the security, verifiability and anonymity of the process. I urge the Scottish Government in looking at the responses to the consultation to pay attention to the response from the open rights group and others who have raised those concerns. I would suggest that we not proceed with a trial of internet, online or electronic voting at this stage. I thank my colleague Stuart Stevenson for bringing this important and exciting topic to the chamber. As the motion points out, it is crucial that considerations relating to confidentiality and security are addressed. For me personally, the potential of what e-voting could deliver makes it well worth exploring the topic and working towards it. I welcome today's opportunity to contribute to the discussion. We can all agree that democracy only works when people actually take part. Electronic voting holds huge potential for making it easier to vote, which could in turn increase turnout and engagement. That might be particularly true for younger people who conduct so much of their lives online, but who are also least likely to turn out to vote. Figures from the Office of National Statistics for 2017 show that virtually all adults aged 16-34 years old at 99 per cent of them were internet users. At the same time, according to Ugov, just over half of 18 and 19-year-olds turned out to vote at the 2017 general election compared with 84 per cent of those aged 70 and over. That might have some appeal to some colleagues who, without wanting to be cheeky on my left, have a 50-point lead among the over-70s at the last election. I would understand their reticence at wanting to increase the youth vote perhaps. I think that everyone in the chamber seriously would share the desire to see greater democratic engagement and turnout among young people. In an era of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, hashtags and online petitions, imagine the impact on turnout if people could, for example, simply see a tweet reminding them to vote, click on the link and do just that, wherever the time of day or wherever they might be. Following the EU referendum in 2016, a Ugov survey found that of 18 to 24-year-olds who failed to vote in the last election, almost half of those polled said that they would have done so if they had been able to vote online. Though there is a particular case to be made for the impact of e-voting on young people, I think that it's appeal goes further. As has been mentioned, Estonia has used e-voting since 2005, with more than 30 per cent of voters casting their ballot online in the most recent parliamentary elections. The deputy head of Estonia's electoral office is stressed that e-voting has become massive and statistically there is no such thing as a typical e-voter. All voters, irrespective of gender, income, education, nationality and even computer skills, have the likelihood of becoming an e-voter. In a Ugov poll commissioned by, yes, I will. John Huckrigeons. I thank the member for taking the intervention. Wouldn't it be better if we got across to people, particularly younger people, the importance of their vote, what it impacts on? Ruth Maguire. Absolutely. We can do that right away. Many of us in our political campaigning do that. It is not one thing or the other. I would certainly not suggest that e-voting is a solution to that one problem. There are lots of things that we need to do. The Welsh Government has recently announced its plans to pilot remote online voting in elections in Wales following the result of a recent consultation. The submission from Web Roots Democracy notes that voters in the 2021 Welsh Assembly election will be the first generation of voters who will not recall a world before smartphones and social media. As time goes on, a digital democracy will become an expectation instead of an aspiration, and it is time that we look at how best we can bring this about, and online voting will play an important part of that. The Scottish Government's own consultation on electronic voting is, of course, under way as we speak. There is a real opportunity here for reforming the way we vote in Scotland to make it more inclusive and engaging and to increase turnout amongst younger voters, perhaps to inject a new lease of life into our democracy. I will finish by taking this opportunity to encourage any of my constituents with views on the matter to make their voice heard and respond to the consultation before 12 March. I am not in trouble, really. Due to the number of members—I have four members who still wish to speak in this debate—I am minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. I invite Mr Stevenson to move a motion without notice. The question is whether the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. I now call Finlay Carson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would also like to thank Stuart Stevenson for bringing this debate to the chamber this evening. As my party's spokesman on the digital economy, I am pleased to be taking part to outline how many of the issues are surrounding electronic voting. We are all now dealing with advancements in technology on a daily basis, and it is important to discuss that in the context of our democracy and elections going forward. While I believe that there have been many constructive points raised by members tonight, I would like to outline why I still have many concerns over the introduction of electronic voting in Scotland and the UK elections. In December 2017, the UK Government commission, Sir Ken Knight, took into electronic voting in industrial ballots. The warnings from Sir Ken's report are stark into how vulnerable the UK's IT systems are to cyberattacks. Only in April 2017, we saw that the Foreign Office had come under a sustained attack from hackers alleged to be linked to a foreign state. That led to the Government reporting that they faced the threat of tens of thousands of cyberattacks every month. We are currently seeing very serious allegations that high-ranking officials in the Russian Government may have even helped to put President Trump into the White House. Do we really want electronic voting to raise questions about the validity of who may be a resident in Bute House, or who may be responsible for that outcome? To point out an even greater warning about the dangers of electronic voting, it is to quote from Sir John Sayers, a former head of MI6, in January 2017. He said, The more things that go online, the more susceptible you are to cyberattacks, bizarrely the stubby pencil and piece of paper that you put your cross on and the ballot box is much more secure than anything that is electronic. I know that for my past designing cattle management programmes for the computers, it is so much easier to put in false records in a computer system than it used to be when you had to fill in the old ledger by pencil and how it was almost impossible to delete records, whereas on an electronic basis it is very straightforward. However, as someone who very proudly visited a local polling station recently to vote with my 90-year-old father and 18-year-old son, we all need to learn lessons from what the former head of MI6 says. Stewart Stevenson's motion refers to electronic voting and increasing turnout, something that we all like to see. At this point, I like to say that I will not debate about the arguments surrounding lower-cost elections, because I do not believe that you can really put a price on transparency and democracy. However, with regard to turnout, if we look at the evidence of countries across the world, it has not resulted in increased turnout. Estonia, which has used internet voting since 2007, showed that it has done very little to attract new voters. In Norway, where trials were done in 10 principles in 2011, analysis indicated that younger voters actually preferred the walk to polling stations, identifying it as symbolic. Furthermore, 89 per cent of those who voted via internet would have voted anyway if the option had not been available. I would also like to conclude by raising connectivity issues in my own constituency of Galloway and Western Fries. There are still widespread areas that are without good mobile or broadband signals, issues that continue to dominate my inbox. If we are wanting to encourage people to participate in our democratic process, should we not first ensure that everyone is able to participate electronically? As politicians, we all have a duty to encourage voters, young and old, to participate in our democratic process, and we all know how much we have had to do that in recent years in Scotland. However, as much as technology continues to advance, I believe that when it comes down to our democratic system, that is one area where I do not want to take away the pencil and introduce the click or the text message. We should heed the concerns outlined in Sir Ken Knight's recent report and look at better ways of increasing voter engagement and turnout. I call Emma Harper to follow by Stuart McMillan and Stuart McMillan will be the last speaker in the open debate, Ms Harper. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you to my colleague Stuart Stevenson for securing that interest in debate and always sitting behind me there. It is only right that, as technology continues to develop at a fast pace, we examine how we could make the process of voting more in tune with the way in which people live their lives. As the motion states, the traditional paper voting method has remained virtually unchanged since 1872. I welcome the Scottish Government's consultation on the electoral reform, which seeks to further investigate the potential benefits of electronic and internet voting systems. Prior to tonight's debate, Stuart Stevenson circulated a helpful briefing note from the Institute of Engineering and Technology, or IET, which I read with interest. Some of the benefits highlighted in the paper I have read about before—for example, boosting voter turnout, cutting the cost of elections and improving accessibility. Many members have mentioned the IET as well, so I am sure that we have found the briefing that Stuart Stevenson sent as very helpful. Under the current system, there is room for human error. Votes can be miscounted, misread or misplaced. When election counts go wrong, it can be very difficult to trace the problems back to their source, and there is no easy way to fix them other than simply beginning again. What has been done so far to test electronic voting technology, in 2007, 13 pilots were held during England's local elections, and in 2011, further trials were carried out in 10 of Norway's municipalities. As part of Norway's trials, two research centres carried out qualitative and quantitative methods to study participation and turnout, and the findings were perhaps unexpected. 89 per cent of internet voters said that they would have voted even in the absence of the online voting option. That analysis was repeated in 2013, and the same conclusions were reached. So again, the trials did not have an effect on voter turnout. In fact, as Finlay Carson mentioned, younger voters tended to indicate that they actually enjoyed attending the polling stations. As a result, the Norwegian Government ceased the trials, and in England, after the 2007 pilots, the Electoral Commission voiced their concerns about planning and quality assurance and confirmed that those would need to be addressed before they lent support to further e-voting pilots. However, as members have already mentioned, in Estonia, there is a country that has used internet voting since 2007, and more than a quarter of the votes that are made online. The Estonians seem to have solved the problems of cyber security, which the IET highlighted as a concern by designing a system that lets voters sign and encrypt their own votes. The secret behind the solution is biometric ID cards. Every citizen has an online ID card that has a digital signing capability, and the card can be used with a chip and pin machine to prove to the Government agencies online that the user is the citizen of Estonia. However, I am sure that, as we all remember, the UK did have a debate about the introduction of ID cards in the last decade before the idea was shelved by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition. Clearly, there are legitimate concerns about the adoption of electronic voting, and they need to be addressed before its widespread adoption. Not least, there are significant cyber security risks, which I have not had time to go into today, but I realise that that has made damaged public trust in the voting systems. Fortunately, the IET has already started examining those issues in its policy and panel work and is engaging with the Electoral Commission to discuss those challenges. Until then, one way that we can ensure increased public engagement with the whole electoral process is to continue to drive forward a vision for a better country and let people see for themselves that they have a Government and a Parliament that are committed to changing society for the better. I want to congratulate my colleague Stuart Seamson for securing this interesting debate. Notionally, I am very skeptical about the issue of electronic and internet voting. However, I think that the motion that is before us was very detailed, and it was also very measured, and I would suggest that it is also very typical of Stuart Seamson. Stuart Seamson, as we all know, is a mathematician, so I am quite sure that if Mr Seamson actually had the time, he would be able to design an electronic voting system for Scotland to actually use. He is halfway there on one aspect—he was talking about it earlier, but I am sure that if he was not in here, he could devote that time to designing that particular system. Electronic voting certainly already happens within the SNP when we have internal elections. I think that that system actually works very well, but I accept that that is a small number of individuals within the wider electorate who will be taking part in that process. I am not sure about other parties if they have electronic voting or not internally, but I agree with the concept of electronic voting, but I have similar concerns to colleagues on the issue of security among others. However, I want to raise one point. I hear the cross-party group on visual impairment. Not one member thus far in debate has raised the issue of accessibility about voting. Certainly, in recent meetings of the cross-party group on visual impairment, we have had a discussion about the consultation that is in front of us about what the Scottish Government has put forward. Members of the cross-party group who are blind and visual impaired have raised issues about the problems of voting now with the system that we currently have. Many of them have suggested that, if they did have an electronic voting system using tablets or phones with a smart technology, they would improve the accessibility for them to take part in the electoral process. Patrick Harvie is grateful to the member for giving way. The issue was discussed at the open rights group briefing last week. There was a general acknowledgement that we are all open to changes to the current voting system to improve accessibility, but there was also a concern that there is no single technological solution that would overcome all different forms of disability and the barriers that exist to using technology. We also know from research done by the citizens advice Scotland that the barriers to using technology in other areas of life also correlate with issues such as social exclusion, such as disability and a number of other factors. There is a danger that we would even compound an existing problem rather than solve it. I thank Patrick Harvie for that contribution. I am not suggesting for one minute that the issue of electronic and internet voting is going to be a panacea. I am not suggesting that at all. Not one person in the cross-party group has suggested that either. However, as a general concept, members of the cross-party group were willing to examine the possibility of electronic and internet voting as one means of increasing accessibility and also increasing voter participation in the electoral system. If electronic voting can help more electors to get involved in the democratic process, it should be examined. We, as politicians, have a crucial role to play in that as well, in our parties' campaigns and how we engage with the electorate. The motion speaks about security considerations, confidentiality and eligibility that they must be resolved. I absolutely agree that, before we go into any type of wider electronic voting, those three points must be fully dealt with so that there is absolute confidence within the electorate that their vote will be counted but that the individuals will have that confidential vote. That is so, so important. Eletronic systems have been used for many other things now in society, electronic banking. Billings of financial transactions will certainly take place on a daily basis. I do believe that if we can produce electronic progress in such matters, I am sure that electronic voting should not be rejected as a concept. I think that time will come. I believe that time will come. It is not there yet. It still has some way to go. I think that there is some quite considerable way to go, and there is that work still to do. However, to start the discussion and to start having that dialogue within this Parliament is very much worthwhile. Once again, I congratulate my colleagues, Stuart Steamson, for securing this debate. I thank my colleagues and I congratulate the member for securing this timely debate. In 2016, the Scottish Government gained additional powers over elections so that, for the first time, we have full responsibility for the Scottish Parliament as well as local government elections. We believe that this is the ideal time to consider the opportunities that are presented by new developments in voting technology. Particularly, we are keen to explore how recent electronic innovation might support our aim of maximising access to democratic participation. The Scottish Government aims to be a global leader in our adoption of digital solutions. Our digital strategy sets out how we plan to achieve this, and it includes a specific commitment to trial and electronic voting solutions. As Emma Harper and Finlay Carson told us, many countries have either adopted or trialled some form of e-voting, and we too are open to exploring the range of options. That might mean trial and use of electronic voting machines that are already widely used in a large number of countries. It might also mean researching the potential of internet voting, which is much less widely used for local and national elections and which does present significant security challenges as the terms of the motion highlights. However, as I think Shuman Millan said, it is already used for some significant elections in this country. However, we choose to proceed. Taking into account the outcome of our current electoral reform consultation, this will not be Scotland's first foray into using technology to manage the electoral process. As Tom Arthur said, the electronic counting of votes for our local government elections has been in place since 2007. E-counting has now been used successfully, and I think that, without issue, at the last two Scotland-wide local government elections, as well as a number of bi-elections, indeed only last May, almost 2 million votes were cast in local elections and counted across 32 local authorities in just eight hours. In all elections where e-counting has been used in Scotland, the results have been accepted by all those involved. However, some people might ask why we should consider moving away from the tried and tested paper and pencil-based voting system that has widespread public confidence. Well, 2018 is an important year in the history of our democracy. February 6 marked the 100th year since the passing of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which allowed some women aged over 30 to finally vote in elections in the UK. Does it not seem a bit odd that in our most recent council elections last May, and indeed in all elections held in Scotland, votes were cast in much the same way as there have been since the 1800s? It was great to hear from Stuart Stevenson what happened prior to 1872, so that we are every day a learning experience when Stuart is around. However, does that not seem extraordinary that the process that is so important to our act of citizenship and democracy has not materially changed for more than 100 years? I am grateful to the minister for giving way. To be honest, it does not seem extraordinary to me that it has not changed. What it suggests to me is that we have a system that works, that is secure, that is anonymous, that is verifiable, that meets the tests that are not yet apparently meetable—may never be meetable—by an internet system. Can the minister tell us—I am sure—that he will pay close attention to all the consultation responses, including those that raise those concerns? When would he expect the Scottish Government to come forward with a proposal that I assume will come to Parliament before any discussion is finally made? How long after the consultation closes does he anticipate bringing forward those recommendations or proposals? I think that the member for the question—I am going to come back to the consultation later, but as with all consultations, the consultation will close. We will then take time to analyse and bring that back. Yes, absolutely. Taking forward anything in terms of our elections, we need to try and do that by consensus. I recognise the tests that Mr Harvey raises. I would argue that, when we look at the current system, the three tests are not met 100 per cent by the current system either. We clearly need to look at all the arguments, and we will look very carefully at all the representations that are made in the consultation, including the ones from the organisation that Mr Harvey mentioned. However, technology has brought us to the point where we can shot with a watch, consume media on the phone and count 2 million votes in any hours. Is it right that our elected representation remains basically unchanged since Victorian times? That is something that we need to look at. Clearly, we made a decision in terms of moving to e-counting in local government, largely based on need, driven by need, in terms of introduction of the STV voting system. However, the question that I would ask us to consider is what, instead of being led by need, we were led driven by opportunity. Clearly, new technology brings potential benefits, which I am going to try and highlight a couple that have already been covered by others. First, Stuart McMillan said, for many of Scotland's disabled voters, casting their vote or being able to vote in secret can be challenging under the current system, whether it is by postal vote or in the polling booth. That is where technology can potentially help. Electronic voting machines can have adapted modifications to make voting easier for voters with certain disabilities. For example, e-voting machines can be configured to include audio and tactile interfaces for those with visual and mobility impairments. The voting instructions can be presented in different languages, including visually and in British Sign Language. Internet voting could potentially benefit blind and visually impaired voters and people with mobility challenges. As Ruth Maguire mentioned, another potential benefit of e-voting is in terms of whether it might help to improve participation, mindful of the time. We clearly are not where we want to be in terms of getting participation on all levels. I do not think that any way of suggesting that would be a panacea, but it is right that we look to see whether that is an area that might encourage more people to vote, and particularly in the year of young people, those younger voters who, as I think someone said, have grown up in a digital world. That is certainly something that we need to look to. Clearly, there are challenges. You do not need to rush, ministers. I am giving you extra time for the intervention. Clearly, there are challenges as well, which many members have raised. I can confirm that the Government is listening carefully to all the challenges that have been brought forward. There are clear concerns about insecurity, which has been raised by a number of members, the integrity of the votes cast in any electronic system. Any change that has been introduced here in Scotland would have to win the confidence of the voter appoint, I think, made quite clearly by Patrick Harvie. Today's motion makes reference to the Scottish Government's public consultation on electoral reform. A consultation gives us the opportunity to explore a wide range of alternatives to the existing electoral processes. We are keen to hear people's views, not just on that particular innovation, but on a whole range of other changes that we are asking for people's views on. Patrick Harvie mentioned the weather that was interfered with his meeting last week. On the basis of that, we have been trying to meet a number of stakeholders in order to hear views on the consultation. However, because of the weather, that has posed some challenges for some of those groups. On that basis, I am announcing today that we intend to extend the consultation to 29 March. I am hoping that tonight's debate will help to encourage more people whatever their views are to feed in, and I hope that that extra time will make that easier for that to happen. In conclusion, I again thank Mr Stevenson for bringing this debate to the chamber and for members for their considered contributions. Thank you.