The value of internet polling.

There has been some speculation that Cellestis and Qiagen are monitoring the polling and that shareholders should get in early to "send them the message." The idea is that by going online and voting "No" Qiagen will be encouraged to produce a higher offer which will be sufficient enough for voters to go back online and change their vote to a "Yes." It is my belief (and I am willing to be proved wrong) that this notion is a furphy.

Using email or the internet to advise of an opinion has proved to be popular however when it comes to making a vote there are many issues to consider. Whilst online voting for elections has been tried in many countries nearly all have abandoned it, security being just one issue issue.

"The vulnerabilities we describe cannot be fixed by design or bug fixes...These vulnerabilities are fundamental in the architecture of the Internet and of the PC hardware and software that is ubiquitous today."

An Australian study into internet voting also found security to be a factor

The composite factor of security, consisting of the security and privacy factors, is strongly supported indicating a significant number of respondents were concerned about the security aspects of using the internet to vote, although they felt the way that they voted would remain private. There is a strong relationship between the privacy aspects of the current voting process and an internet voting process.

Security analysts are doubtful that the disadvantages will be overcome

“Building a secure Internet-based voting system is a very hard problem, harder than all the other computer security problems we’ve attempted and failed at. I believe that the risks to democracy are too great to attempt it.”

Indeed, ComputerShare confirm that online voting has yet to be adopted by a majority of shareholders

The very fact that Cellestis shareholders can change their vote online proves that the system is open to manipulation.