Not considering online voting is almost immoral, a Norwich MP has said amid calls for the innovation to be introduced in time for the next general election.

Norwich North MP Chloe Smith has helped launch a report which argues for online voting by 2020.

The MP, who was the youngest in the House of Commons when she joined in 2009, said she took a 'generational view of democracy'.

'It is an extremely unusual thing for Generation Y not to be able to do something online. We shop, we bank, we date, we chat, we organise with ease. However, we vote entirely on paper. It's alien to young people, and indeed to anyone who appreciates the capability of the internet. It's also ineffective: we communicate online with people all the time but we lack the final 'one-click' to clinch the deal in democracy when the time comes.'

The former constitution minister said there had been a big debate about security and cost considerations, but many of these concerns pertained to paper voting as well, and postal voting in particular.

'Sensibly legislating and implementing e-voting can be done if politicians admit that it is almost immoral by now to fail to consider it. It is a sizeable project and we should start it. Moving voting online does not need to scare us.

'This is too obvious an area for reform. My generation is politically interested, but turned off by traditional politics. That means that today's politicians have to engage today's young people once again in the nuts and bolts of democracy.'