How did you vote yesterday? No, I’m not asking who you voted for. How did you actually vote? The chances are you, like most voters, walked to your local polling station, queued up, pencilled “x” on your ballot paper and put it in the box. For all the ways technology has transformed our lives, it is remarkable how archaic the fundamental act of democracy remains.

Various countries have tried to drag it into the 21st century, sometimes trying to speed up the counting (punch card machines or computerised ballot counters instead of humans), sometimes trying to overhaul the act of voting itself (touchscreen voting machines or online votes).

Such efforts usually run into the same technological problems. First, the more complexity you introduce the more