Premium
Remote Electronic Voting: Free, Fair and Secret?
Author(s) -
Birch Sarah,
Watt Bob
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-923x.2004.00572.x
Subject(s) - voting , secrecy , electronic voting , polling , context (archaeology) , democracy , argument (complex analysis) , normative , law and economics , bullet voting , disapproval voting , computer security , political science , internet privacy , computer science , law , public relations , sociology , politics , biochemistry , chemistry , biology , operating system , paleontology
Most of the debate surrounding remote electronic voting has focused on technical issues such as security and feasibility. This article examines the equally important issue of whether voting outside the context of the supervised polling place meets the legal and normative standards required of democratic elections. Our conclusion is that if voting that takes place in an unsupervised context, it is virtually impossible to guarantee that it will be carried out in secret, and that lack of secrecy constitutes a serious violation of the principles of freeness and fairness that govern elections in democratic states. This argument also has implications for postal voting, which are discussed in brief.