Shutting down the economy on Election Day costs the Israeli economy between two and three billion shekels, once again raising the obvious question: Why not switch to digital voting from home or use computers at polling stations?
Prof. Orr Dunkelman, an information security expert at the University of Haifa, believes that despite the technological appeal, the potential cost could be far greater.
According to him, elections are not simply a matter of placing a ballot in a box. They constitute an entire system that includes legislation, determining voting eligibility, campaign rules, vote counting, the allocation of Knesset seats, and surplus-vote agreements. Therefore, he says, the question of digitization cannot be examined solely through the voting stage itself.
Dunkelman presents two main possibilities for digital voting: voting from home and voting using machines at polling stations. He argues that voting from home raises serious concerns regarding freedom of choice, since there is no way to ensure that a voter is not being subjected to pressure, threats, or coercion by family members or others. In addition, there is the danger of coordinated voting through the takeover of the mobile devices of groups of voters.
There are also significant technological difficulties. According to Dunkelman, not all citizens have the access or skills required to use digital systems, while the large number of political parties in Israel could create biases in how candidate lists are displayed on the voting screen.
Beyond this, Dunkelman warns of the cybersecurity threat. A computerized election system deployed throughout the country would be a particularly attractive target for hostile actors. He notes that if countries are capable of penetrating complex systems around the world, compromising an election system could be easier. He adds that at dedicated hacker conferences in the United States, experts succeeded in hacking every voting machine presented to them.
According to Dunkelman, the greatest challenge is not merely technological but also one of public confidence. A democratic electoral system depends on the public's trust in its results. If election results are clouded by suspicions, challenges, and conspiracy theories regarding the reliability of the computerized system, the legitimacy of the entire democratic process could be undermined.
Therefore, despite the disadvantages of the traditional voting system and the high cost of Election Day, Dunkelman believes that the existing mechanisms-physical polling stations, double counting, observers, and double envelopes-currently provide a higher degree of reliability than can be guaranteed through a digital system.
According to him, as long as it is impossible to guarantee both complete security and broad public confidence, the transition to digital elections is unlikely to become a reality.