Mobile voting is here and it is transforming democracy

France’s snap legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July attracted global attention, as many observers anxiously feared that the ascendant far-right party, National Rally, would achieve a majority in the French legislature — an occurrence without precedent in post-World War II France.

National Rally (RN) ended up underperforming in polls, and a hastily-formed coalition of leftist parties allied with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party to secure a parliamentary majority.

Yet despite the less-than-earth-shattering outcome, it was a historic election for another, less publicised reason.

Within just a few weeks, France organised the largest-ever mobile political election. Although online voting was restricted to French citizens living abroad, more than 1.1 million votes were cast entirely online across two rounds of voting, representing 75% of total French votes abroad.

The advantages of mobile voting are clear. Over 90% of Europeans own a smartphone, and mobile voting (sometimes called internet or online voting) offers a significantly easier way to vote.

Citizens can exercise their rights from anywhere through their phones instead of travelling to polling stations and waiting in long lines to physically cast their vote.

Mobile voting can also be conducted on other electronic devices such as a tablet or laptop. In short, mobile voting dramatically increases voting accessibility.

It is often the only realistic voting option for hundreds of thousands of voters, including voters overseas, voters with disabilities, and voters who are otherwise displaced due to schooling or work.

The most popular voting method

Mobile voting is also extremely popular. In preparation for the snap election, France rapidly set up an extensive network of physical polling booths in 213 cities globally to facilitate in-person voting for its citizens abroad.

Yet when given the choice between voting in person and voting online, three-quarters of France’s overseas citizens chose mobile voting.

Other EU countries have also implemented mobile voting systems to varying degrees. Estonia, a pioneer in online voting, has provided an online voting option in its national and European elections to all its citizens for nearly two decades.

In the latest European parliamentary elections, 51% of Estonians chose to cast their ballot online, the highest portion ever, demonstrating mobile voting’s enduring popularity. Both Estonia’s recent European vote and France’s legislative elections demonstrate that when given the option, most voters chose mobile voting.

Outside of the EU, mobile voting is becoming increasingly prevalent. Nearly two-thirds of US states allow at least military personnel to vote online, a crucial option for those in hard-to-reach locations.

Without online options, military and overseas US citizens vote by mail even though inevitable delays result in tens of thousands of ballots arriving after election day, effectively disenfranchising many eligible voters.

In fact, according to a US government study, at least 40% of military and overseas US voters who wanted to vote in the last presidential election faced difficulties in receiving and returning paper ballots by mail.

Mobile voting offers a solution to these problems. Already, there are signs of progress. In the 2020 US presidential election, over 300,000 ballots were submitted online.

While this represents only a fraction of eligible US voters abroad, it is an encouraging step in the right direction. After all, without mobile voting, many of these voters wouldn’t have been able to make their voices heard.

Higher voter turnout

By improving voter accessibility, mobile voting offers another huge benefit — it increases voter turnout. In one pilot program near Seattle on the West Coast of the US, turnout doubled when a local district offered mobile voting as an option to all eligible voters. In the three elections since, turnout has increased by more than 200%.

Higher voter turnout enhances the legitimacy of the democratic process and ensures that decisions made by elected officials represent the people’s will. In other words, higher voter turnout strengthens democracy.

Unfortunately, while voter turnout in Europe varies greatly by country, there is evidence that it has been trending lower in the past decade.

Only 32% of Romanians voted in their national parliamentary elections in 2020, and only 39% of Portuguese voters turned up for their presidential election in 2021.

Turnout in European elections tends to be even lower — only 21% of Hungary’s citizens voted in the latest European elections in June. In the US, primary elections for members of Congress rarely top 30%.

While low turnout may reflect apathy or disillusionment with politics, it also contributes to a political environment where politicians need not respond to the needs of all their citizens to win re-election.

This creates a negative feedback loop, where underrepresented groups disengage from politics as they believe their vote does not matter, further eroding institutional trust.

By eliminating barriers to voting for all types of voters, mobile voting can help rebuild trust in political institutions and reinvigorate democracy.

Addressing security risks

Mobile voting sceptics often claim security as their main concern against mobile voting.

While security concerns exist in any voting system, new technologies can now provide security and voter secrecy in mobile voting that exceed traditional, offline voting methods.

Indeed, while some overseas French voters initially encountered delays in loading the needed link to vote with their phones, these delays were quickly resolved, and over 1.1 million votes were cast without any security issues.

Electronic platforms now exist that address the main challenges of mobile voting—voter authentication, voter secrecy, vote integrity, and the ability to audit vote count.

Through advanced encryption and end-to-end verifiability, electronic platforms like the system used in Estonia have demonstrated that building a secure, convenient voting process at scale is possible.

End-to-end verifiability empowers the voter to independently audit the system and make sure their vote is secure. In this way, mobile voting can be made safe from phishing and malware attacks, data breaches, and other potential threats.

Recent advances in mobile voting technology offer a powerful means to improve electoral processes and strengthen democracies worldwide. France has shown that large-scale mobile voting can be executed in a very short timeframe with minimal hiccups and reliable results.

As mobile voting technology continues to improve and earn voters’ trust, mobile voting should increasingly become the norm.

Healthy democracies require active citizen participation. Mobile voting can energise the electorate and create a virtuous cycle of greater voter participation, greater electoral accountability, and better policies and outcomes.

In an era where democracy is facing increasing pressures around the world, mobile voting offers a promising path forward.

Remi Meehan is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po, and Bradley Tusk is a philanthropist and cofounder of the Mobile Voting movement.

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