Platform: Dad's Army polling system needs to be ditched for e-voting

If the truth be told, I would much rather exercise my dog than vote, but come Thursday night, I strolled down to the polling station and placed my cross on a piece of paper for the sake of democracy.

For the first time since I left school, I walked into a voting booth that wouldn't have looked out of place in an episode of Dad's Army and asked myself: why in 21st-century Britain are we still stuck with a voting system our parents, grandparents and great grandparents faced in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s?

Why am I not voting via my laptop, mobile, TV, at the supermarket checkout or when I buy my train ticket?

Thursday evening was a defining moment in British politics, but the sight of would-be voters queuing round the block like pop fans wanting tickets for Take That was embarrassing. The fury of frustrated voters in Sheffield was shocking and the stories of poll chaos threatened to turn election night into farce.

We scoffed at the scenes in Florida as the greatest democracy in the world squabbled over a handful of votes to decide who would sit in the Oval Office. We shook our heads in anger at the farce that was polling day in Zimbabwe. We called for global action over elections in Burma.

So how can hundreds if not thousands of voters being excluded here be acceptable? Something has to change.

In the 2007 local elections, certain English pilot areas tried out a hybrid e-voting scheme monitored by the Electoral Commission, using text messages, the internet, electronic kiosks and, for the first time, digital TV.

Electoral Commission research has revealed significant demand for electronic voting. In a survey, 55 per cent of English adults said being offered e-voting in some form would encourage them to vote in local elections. Voters aged 18-24 were keenest to try the new methods, with three-quarters saying that e-voting would encourage them to participate.

Voting via the internet was seen as most likely to encourage participation (41 per cent), followed by text messaging, (33 per cent), electronic kiosks (30 per cent), and digital TV (26 per cent).

Security fears would pose the biggest obstacle. People must have confidence that security cannot be breached. But as technology advances, there seems no doubt a highly secure electronic voting system voters would trust could be put in place.

Jenny Watson, chair of the Electoral Commission, has said the current system "is not fit for purpose," saying it was designed by the Victorians when around five million people voted against around 44 million today. She added: "Fundamentally, we have inherited a system that … isn't going to deliver in the modern world. This is the 21st century, we all have completely different understanding of technology and the way we live our lives."

The UK, however, is lagging behind in the e-vote race.

Brazil was the first country in the world to have fully electronic elections in 2000. And India, which has the largest electorate in the world at 714 million voters, exclusively used electronic voting machines in both 2004 and 2009.

We now have to ensure we make voting easier for everyone in Britain, if we really believe in the democratic process.

That way I can get back to exercising the labrador, and exercising my franchise by mobile.

Gary Sharp is on the board of PCG, an organisation representing 1.4m freelance workers.