Online voting should be made mandatory, says Martha Lane Fox
Government’s former digital champion also says teenagers should be given right to erase online past when they reach 18
The government’s former digital champion, Martha Lane Fox, has said online voting should be made mandatory and teenagers given the right to erase their online past when they reach 18.
The lastminute.com founder said new technology should be used to bring young people into the political arena after just under two-thirds of the population voted in the 2010 general election.
“I recoil when I hear the political disenchantment statistics reeled out, no-one votes [and] political disenchantment which is of course true and right. But the young people I meet particularly are incredibly political with a big capital P and just don’t want to engage in the normal channels,” Fox told the Radio Festival in Salford on Monday.
“I would argue immediately that voting should be mandatory and it should be online. Of course we can cover for all the fraud and I don’t think it makes the procedure any less robust, in fact quite the opposite.
I agree that if voting was made able online a lot more people would vote due to the easy accessibility to the internet. However I don't think voting should be made mandatory for teenagers as some teenagers may not feel like they have good enough knowledge of politics to be able to vote and may lead to voting for the sake of it.
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