A PLAN to pilot a new electronic voting system during the Malvern Hills District Council elections in May has been scrapped.

The council has withdrawn from the e-voting pilot because it felt that it had been let down by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM), which was dealing with the approval of pilot bids from local authorities and the approval of system suppliers.

"It was resolved last year that the council should make an application to run an e-voting pilot project for the May, 2003, district and parish elections, to enable those electors who wished to do so to vote on line via the internet," said Nigel Snape, Malvern's head of legal services.

"This came about as a result of an approach from Qinetiq, which was keen to work with the council in developing such a system.

"We were extremely disappointed when Qinetiq failed to make it through the first stages of the ODPM's selection process for system suppliers."

The council then had discussions with BT as an alternative systems supplier, but the announcement of approved suppliers was twice delayed by the OPDM, making it increasingly difficult for the council to make the necessary preparations.

It was announced on Thursday, January 30, that BT's application had not been fully approved and that the council's project had been allocated to Unisys in place of BT without there having been any discussion with the council.

Officers decided there was not enough time to implement e-voting at the next election.

"E-voting offers exciting opportunities that will make it easier for people to cast their votes,'' said Mr Snape.

"However, despite the setback on this occasion we have indicated we would still be interested in looking at e-voting for subsequent elections."