e-Voting

We live in a demand-driven world and there is now a strong trend towards soliciting the opinion of citizens regarding how society functions on both a local and national level. This supports the principle of e-Democracy, particularly on a local level.
In Europe, in Asia and in South America, politicians are increasingly acting based on the opinion of citizens present in online debates, but the most popular use of new media in this trend remains the practice of e-Voting.
e-Voting does bring certain symbolic and cultural drawbacks, particularly in terms of the symbolism of physically going to a public place to carry out a citizenly act, and in terms of the sincerity of the vote itself. Many local authorities have expressed concerns about this lack of sincerity when voting is done remotely.

e-Participation is gaining ground with numerous schemes being adopted in countries like Estonia, Belgium, France, Spain and Brazil. However, other schemes – such as those in Ireland and Great Britain, not to mention the Serve EU project – have been scrapped due to security failures.

Indeed, Estonia’s commitment to the web for e-Voting is clear. After the local elections in 2005, in which this Baltic State with some 1.4 million inhabitants became the first country in the world to use online voting, it continued its strategy with its parliamentary elections in March 2007.
 

The Estonian example

Thanks to the Internet, Some 940,000 Estonians were able to vote ‘in advance’ from the Monday to the Wednesday preceding Sunday national poll. By inserting their ID card into a reader attached to a PC they were able to access a secured site where they could vote and sign the vote electronically.

If the citizen made a mistake, or they thought they’d been influenced while voting by people around them, they were able to vote again on the Sunday, by deleting their online vote and using the traditional secret ballot. In 2005, only 30 voters out of 9,317 changed their minds during the local elections.

This was done to appease the fears electors may have had concerning pressure from those around them and their colleagues, pushing them to vote the opposite of what they would have done. The e-voting is dominated by the traditional voting process.

Over 30,000 Estonians – 3.13% of the electorate – voted electronically. The Estonians believe it is just a question of time before the critical mass is achieved.

This example demonstrates a possible method of progressively educating citizens whilst maintaining the means to guarantee the sincerity of the vote.