Vision Australia is worried that NSW may have problems replacing the iVote system, which was abandoned in early 2022, with something better or at least comparable.
The not-for-profit said that iVote’s “disappearance” as a voting option for those who are blind or have impaired vision had left a “equity and inclusiveness vacuum” that would be challenging to fill in a submission [pdf] to an inquiry into technology aided voting.
According to Vision Australia, “the suite of voting options that comprised iVote [has] always [been] considered as the ‘gold standard’ in independent, secret, and verifiable voting for persons who are blind or have low vision,” along with other organisations in the blindness and low vision sector.
According to Vision Australia, iVote’s failure was partly caused by the fact that too many individuals were encouraged to use it.
The organisation stated: “Expanding the eligibility requirements for a particular kind of voting may reduce the unit costs of implementing it, but the final result may be to lessen the advantages.
“Unfortunately, this was the situation with iVote.
“Beyond 2011 to 2021, the eligibility requirements were greatly increased from their original scope, and the system’s capacity to handle the rising user population was not maintained, leading to an ultimate and expensive failure.
In a later section of its submission, Vision Australia stated that it has “no objection to any form of technology assisted voting being made available to other groups of electors, provided always that there is no potential or actual impact of any kind, including increased risk of data breaches and system delays, outages, or failures, on voters with a disability.”
Whatever technological path the government chose, Vision Australia argued that it was necessary to at least replicate the choices made available by iVote.
It stated that any future technologically assisted voting must at the very least match the range of possibilities offered by iVote.
