The European Union and e-voting: Upgrading Euro-elections

The European Union and e-Voting: Addressing the European Parliament's Internet Voting Challenge

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 1-25

  Mendez, Fernando ^a,b,c   Trechsel, Alexander H ^a,b  

^a EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE   (Italy)

^b UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA   (Switzerland)

^c E Democracy Centre (e DC)   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84909370318     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.4324/9780203391044     Document Type: Chapter

References (58)

1. See Norris, P. 'e-Voting as the Magic Ballot? The impact of internet voting on turnout in European Parliamentary elections', paper presented at the conference on e-Voting and the European Parliamentary elections, European University Institute Florence, May 2002.
2. Moravscik, A. (2002) 'In defence of the "Democratic Deficit": reassessing legitimacy in the European Union', Journal of Common Market Studies, 40 (4): 603-24.
3. See the Press Release of the Transnational Radical Party, the sponsors of the initiative. Available at: www.coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreleases/press_release.php?func=detail&par=1634.
4. See the UK's Electoral Commission's Recommendation, December 2003, for the electoral pilots at the June 2004 elections. Available at: www.electoralcom-mission.gov.uk.
5. For a similar argument see Coleman, S. (2002) Elections in the 21st Century: From Paper Ballot to e-Voting, London: Electoral Reform Society. Available at: www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/books/exec.pdf.
6. We owe to Philippe Schmitter this insight concerning the notion of 'Information Rights' and its link to T.H. Marshall. Marshall laid out the three elements for developing what he described as full citizenship. These were civil rights (individual liberty, freedom, right to free speech, and the right to own property), political rights (the right to participate in the political process) and social rights (a degree of economic and welfare security based on 'prevailing' living standards). See Marshall, T.H. (1965) Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7. See Bobbio, N. (1987) The Future of Democracy. A Defence of the Rule of the Games, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
8. See Whale, J. (2000) Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
9. Dahl, R.A. (1956) A Preface to Democratic Theory, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
10. See Schumpeter, J.A. (1976) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London: Allen & Unwin (5th edn).
11. Sartori, G. (1973) Democratic Theory, Westport: Greenwood Press.
12. Barber, B. (1984) Strong Democracy. Participatory Politics for a New Age, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
13. Budge, I. (1996) The New Challenge of Direct Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.
14. Kriesi, H. (1998) Le système politique Suisse, Paris: Economica (2nd edn).
15. Elster, Jon (ed.) (1998) Deliberative Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. Fishkin, J. (1991) Deliberation and Democracy. New Directions for Democratic Reform, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
17. Habermas, J. (1992) Faktizität und Geltung: Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
18. See, for instance, Nixon, P. and Johansson, H. (1999) 'Transparency through technology: the internet and political parties', in B.N. Hague and B.D. Loader (eds) Digital Democracy, London: Routledge;
19. Davis, R. (1999) The Web of Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press;
20. Wilhelm, A.G. (2000) Democracy in the Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace. New York: Routledge;
21. Coleman, S. and John, G. (2001) Bowling Together: Online Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation. Available at www.bowlingtogether.net/about.html.
22. See Trechsel, A., Kies, R., Mendez, F. and Schmitter, P. (2003) 'Evaluation of the use of new technologies in order to facilitate democracy in Europe: e-Democratizing the parliaments and parties in Europe', European Parliament, STOA (Scientific and Technological Option Assessment) Report, Directorate-General for Research.
23. See Trechsel, A. et al., op. cit.
24. For a useful critical overview of the White Paper see Scharpf, F. (2001) 'European governance: common concern vs the challenge of diversity', Jean Monet Working Papers. No. 6/01 Symposium: The Commission White Paper on Governance. Available at www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/01/010701.html.
25. The Laeken Declaration is available at www.euconvention.be/static/LaekenDeclaration.asp.
26. See the Futurum website www.europa.eu.int/futurum/index_en.htm.
27. See Trechsel, A. et al., op. cit.
28. See Coleman, S. (2002) op. cit.
29. Marquand, D. (1979) Parliament for Europe, London: Jonathan Cape.
30. Mény, Y. (2003) 'De la démocratie en Europe: old concepts and new challenges', Journal of Common Market Studies, 41 (1).
31. Zweifel, T. (2002) '.. . Who is without sin cast the first stone: the EU's democratic deficit in comparison', Journal of European Public Policy 9 (6).
32. See Mény, op. cit., p. 9.
33. See Moravscik, A., op. cit.
34. See Norris, P. (2002) op. cit.
35. On the issue of trust and the state see in particular Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
36. Nonetheless, according to the study by Trechsel et al. (2003) op. cit., the European Parliament has one of the highest scores in terms of the e-democratic potential of its parliamentary website.
37. For further information on the eEurope action plan see the Commission's website at www.europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/2005/index_en.htm.
38. For ongoing works on the topic of e-voting within the Council of Europe see the relevant integrated project 'Making democratic institutions work' at www.coe.int/t/e/Integrated_Projects/democracy/.
39. Birch, S. and Watt, B. (2004) 'Remote electronic voting: free, fair and secret?', Political Quarterly 75 (1).
40. See pp. 5-6 of the report by the UK Department of Constitutional Affairs on the implementation of e-voting. Available at: www.dca.gov.uk/elections/e-voting/pdf/e-summary.pdf.
41. See, for instance, Internet Policy Institute (2001) Report of the National Workshop on Internet Voting. Available at: www.nsf.gov;
42. Public Administration Select Committee (2001) First Report 2001-2002, London: HMSO; see California Internet Voting Task Force (2000) A Report on the Feasibility of Internet Voting. Available at: www.nsf.gov;
43. Public Administration Select Committee (2001) First Report 2001-2002, London: HMSO
44. see California Internet Voting Task Force (2000) A Report on the Feasibility of Internet Voting. Available at: www.ss.ca.gov.
45. See p. 7 of the Serve Study by Jefferson, D., Aviel, R., Simons, B.andWagner, D. (2004) A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE). Available at: www.servesecurityreport.org/paper.pdf.
46. Dahl, R. (1991) Democracy and its Critics, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
47. See Beck, U. (1986) Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
48. See the report, US Whitehouse (2003) National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. Available at: www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberspace:strategy.pdf.
49. Hix, S. (1998) 'The Study of the EU II: the new governance agenda and its rival', Journal of European Public Policy, 5 (1).
50. For an extended and cogent discussion see Hix, S. (1999) The Political System of the European Union, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
51. See Hix, S. (2002) 'Why the EU should have a single president and how she should be elected', paper for the Working Group on Democracy in the EU for the British Cabinet Office. Available at: www.personal.lse.ac.uk/HIX/Working%20Papers/Why%20the%20EU%20Should%20Have%20a%20Single%20President.pdf.
52. See Hix, S. (2002) op. cit.
53. See Papadopoulos, Y. 'Democratising the European Union á la Suisse, or is the addition of some (semi) direct democracy to the nascent consociational European federation just Swiss folklore?', paper presented at the conference Towards a federal Europe?, European University Institute, Florence, June 2003.
54. See also Papadopoulos, Y. (2003) 'Cooperative forms of governance: problems of democratic accountability in complex environments', European Journal of Political Research, 42 (4): 473-502.
55. Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
56. The canton of Geneva tested its system on 449 internet users with the right to vote, a sizeable majority of whom were in favour of linking the e-voting platform to more political parties and public authorities via hyperlinks and in favour of hosting online forums on the official web site. See Christin, Th. and Müller, R. (2002) Analyse quantitative du test Alpha Ter: Evaluation par questionnaire du système de vote par internet, Geneva: c2d, University of Geneva. Available at: www.ge.ch/chancellerie/E-Government/doc/rapport_alphater_evoting.pdf.
57. See Trechsel, A. (2003) 'Perspektiven zur e-democracy in der EU', in H. MuraltMüller, A. Auer and Th. Koller (eds) E-voting, Bern: Stämpfli, pp. 374 ff.
58. Such a demand could be gauged, for example, in a survey in the canton of Geneva. See Kies, R. and Trechsel, A.H. (2001) 'Le contexte socio-politique', in A. Auer and A.H. Trechsel (eds) Voter par internet? Le projet e-voting dans le canton de Genève dans une perspective socio-politique et juridique, Geneva, Basle, Munich: Helbing & Lichtenhahn. Available at: www.ge.ch/chancellerie/e-government/doc/Voter_par_Internet.pdf.