Information Polity

Recent technological developments have opened up the possibility of electronic voting and this clearly provides some opportunities and threats. On the one hand, the new technology may help to make voting more cost effective and more convenient for the voter and may even increase voter turnout. On the other, e-voting may introduce new risks and affect electoral values, such as the secrecy of the vote and the place of voting as an observable institution in modern democracies.

At present various countries and different electoral systems are confronted with these opportunities and threats and the question is what will happen. Will the new technology, with its international standards and its seemingly objective opportunities and threats determine the development and lead to a convergence in voting practices which optimise the benefits? Or, will decisions concerning the application of ICT in the voting process vary as a result of differences in social context and varying democratic institutions?

In this paper we claim that, based on social theory regarding technology adoption, different countries may very well differ in their attitudes and actual decisions regarding e-voting. When we look at the current developments in 13 Western-European countries, this claim is supported. Decision-making concerning the introduction of e-Voting in these rather similar countries is clearly structured by diverging democratic institution and as a result e-voting developments actually differ.

This article assesses the role of political web sites in the campaign for the Dutch parliamentary elections of 2002. It presents the results of an online survey of 18,000 visitors to political Web sites to examine how far, 1) political Web sites can engage people in politics and, 2) party Web sites in particular can reach floating voters. The results of the survey reveal that political Web sites are only partly able to involve people in politics who have thus far remained aloof. Yet, political Web sites are successful in reaching young people, a group which is usually less politically active but which uses the Internet more intensively. The use of political Web sites does not lead to a more active engagement in politics. For most people the primary reason for visiting a political Web site was finding information about the positions of political parties, about party organisations or about the election campaign. Not only party supporters, but also floating and undecided voters were interested in this information.

How to realize the potential of the Internet for creating virtual public spheres for democratic dialogue has been widely discussed. It has been argued that government should play a more active role in that process. This paper examines a Danish case sponsored by a local government where citizens and politicians were invited to debate via the Internet. It is concluded that the project was quite a success. The overall tone of the debate was respectful and the levels of argumentation, information and deliberation were generally high. Further, the presence of politicians created a debate space consisting of two dimensions and five relations. Two main processes took place within that space: general debates and consultation processes between citizens and politicians. As such, the project achieved a double purpose. Problematically, the project did not succeed in mobilising new groups for political debate. Further, it was a tendency that the politicians tended to dominate the debate leaving less space for debates among citizens.

There are several indications that the (long-term) memory of electronic government is in danger and that this decline in organizational memory may have important negative effects on accountability. Case study research in the Netherlands, however, highlights the positive effects of the use of information and communication technologies for parliamentary and legal accountability. Although technological safeguards for authenticity may be lacking and data may not always be preserved in a durable way, parliamentary and legal fact-finding is generally facilitated. The use of ICTs leads to more informational and analytical transparency of government organizations: more data is recorded and there are also more ways to retrieve this data. This increased transparency is an unintentional effect of efforts to improve the support and management of business processes.