THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE VOTING PROCESS

Abstract

In recent years, internet vote has become a hot topic, and the majority of governments in Europe and elsewhere plan to experiment and implement it. In recent years, a large number of technology developments were undertaken and the technology standards were developed. Simultaneously, a large number of legal and philosophical problems are at issue, as voting systems, forms and technologies have regulatory consequences. This makes it so difficult and complex to develop and implement e-democracy systems in general and e-voting systems in particular. We assess the use of ICTs in four aspects of the electoral process—voting, voting ID, election result processing, and results publication—on the basis of cross-sectional data from 160 countries and testing multiple variables to isolate ICTs from the effect of electoral integrity. In general, we believe that voters have a high level of confidence in e-voting, but this depends on their individual characteristics, such as age and education, and on the specific technology used.