There are serious issues, however, regarding computer security and voter fraud, unequal Internet access across socioeconomic lines (the "digital divide"), and the civic consequences of moving elections away from schools and other polling places and into private homes and offices. After all, showing up to vote is the most public civic activity many Americans engage in, and it is often their only overt participation in the democratic process."
This book investigates how institutional differences, such as the roles of political parties and the regulation of electoral systems, affect the development of Internet election campaigns in the U.S., Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It examines whether or not the “Americanization of elections” is evident in East Asian democracies. While Japan is a parliamentary system, the U.S. and Korea are presidential systems and Taiwan is a semi-presidential system that has a president along with a parliamentary system. Furthermore, the role of the presidency in the U.S., Korea, and Taiwan is quite different. Taking these variations in political systems into consideration, the authors discuss how the electoral systems are regulated in relation to issues such as paid advertisements and campaign periods. They argue that stronger regulation of election systems and shorter election periods in Japan characterize Japanese uniqueness compared with the U.S., Korea, and Taiwan in terms of Internet election campaigns.
Since the 2000 presidential election, the United States has been embroiled in debates about electronic voting. Critics say the new technologies invite tampering and fraud. Advocates say they enhance the accuracy of vote counts and make casting ballots easier--and ultimately foster greater political participation. Electronic Elections cuts through the media spin to assess the advantages and risks associated with different ways of casting ballots--and shows how e-voting can be the future of American democracy. Elections by nature are fraught with risk. Michael Alvarez and Thad Hall fully examine the range of past methods and the new technologies that have been created to try to minimize risk and accurately reflect the will of voters. Drawing upon a wealth of new data on how different kinds of electronic voting machines have performed in recent elections nationwide, they evaluate the security issues that have been the subject of so much media attention, and examine the impacts the new computer-based solutions is having on voter participation. Alvarez and Hall explain why the benefits of e-voting can outweigh the challenges, and they argue that media coverage of the new technologies has emphasized their problems while virtually ignoring their enormous potential for empowering more citizens to vote. The authors also offer ways to improve voting technologies and to develop more effective means of implementing and evaluating these systems. Electronic Elections makes a case for how e-voting can work in the United States, showing why making it work right is essential to the future vibrancy of the democratic process.
The upcoming Presidential election will be pivotal in determining our country's future for years to come. The race is intensifying, but our antiquated voting system may not be able to accurately count all the votes. Millions of military and other overseas voters will be dependent on the postal system to vote, the same as more than 100 years ago. Millions of votes in past elections went uncounted. The United States ranks #31 out of the leading 34 developed countries in voter participation. One of the reasons for the low turnout is our out of date system for registration and voting. Physically going to a polling place is an old fashioned idea to millennials. Election Attitude - How Internet Voting Leads to a Stronger Democracy, is an eye-opening and thought-provoking book which explores how we register and vote in America. Voting is mostly done with out of date machines running out of date software. After the voting debacle of 2000, thousands of voting jurisdictions across America replaced their voting machines with the latest technology available. Now that equipment is nearly 15 years old. Many Americans are asking why we can't vote on the Internet. To his surprise, Dr. John R. Patrick discovered anti-Internet voting activists have convinced political leaders and election officials the Internet is not good enough for voting. Election Attitude debunks this concern with an in depth but easy to read discussion about Internet security, authentication, privacy, verifiability, and other challenges to online voting. Election Attitude paints a positive vision for how solutions can be developed to bring voting into the modern era. As he has shown in his prior books, Net Attitude and Health Attitude, complex problems can be addressed if the right attitude is applied. After serving on the board of a community hospital, Dr. Patrick was shocked to learn how slowly hospitals were adopting new information technology. He said, "I was appalled at how archaic hospital processes were-with paper, post-its, and clip boards everywhere. In early 2016, Patrick became interested in the American system for registration and voting. "In my research for Election Attitude, I found the situation in American voting even more archaic than in healthcare. I immediately thought there must be a way Internet technology can make voting more convenient, increase voter participation, and produce a stronger democracy." In his research, Patrick found there were many obstacles to Internet voting. Politicians prefer the status quo. "When more votes could mean fewer incumbents being re-elected," there is no political will to embrace Internet voting. Despite the incredible advances in Internet technology which have made it possible to trust the Internet with our money and our personal healthcare information, the elite group of anti-Internet voting activists actively lobby against Internet voting. Election Attitude challenges their rationale and urges state by state and county by county pilots of Internet voting using advanced technology such as blockchain and the mobile Internet with smartphones. Election Attitude includes a vision focused on consumers who use the Internet for most aspects of their lives - except to vote. The vision intersects with the expectations of millennials and Generation Z Americans. Our country has one of the lowest rates of voter participation in the world. Our democracy is not working as well as it could. Patrick says, "Internet voting will make it much stronger."
Electronic voting is often seen as a tool for making the electoral process more efficient and for increasing trust in its management. Properly implemented, e-voting solutions can increase the security of the ballot, speed up the processing of results and make voting easier. However, the challenges are considerable. If not carefully planned and designed, e-voting can undermine the confidence in the whole electoral process. Technology upgrades in elections are always challenging projects that require careful deliberation and planning. Introducing e-voting is probably the most difficult upgrade as this technology touches the core of the entire electoral process—the casting and counting of the votes. E-voting greatly reduces direct human control and influence in this process. This provides an opportunity for solving some old electoral problems, but also introduces a whole range of new concerns. Consequently, e-voting usually triggers more criticism and opposition and is more disputed than any other information technology application in elections. This Policy Paper outlines contextual factors that can influence the success of e-voting solutions and highlights the importance of considering these factors before choosing to introduce new voting technologies.
During the 2016 presidential election, America's election infrastructure was targeted by actors sponsored by the Russian government. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy examines the challenges arising out of the 2016 federal election, assesses current technology and standards for voting, and recommends steps that the federal government, state and local governments, election administrators, and vendors of voting technology should take to improve the security of election infrastructure. In doing so, the report provides a vision of voting that is more secure, accessible, reliable, and verifiable.
Real-World Electronic Voting: Design, Analysis and Deployment captures all major developments in electronic voting since 2003 in a real-world setting. It covers three broad categories: e-voting protocols, attacks reported on e-voting and new developments on the use of e-voting. This book explores recent innovations in both poll-site and remote voting systems and their application throughout the world. The requirements of elections are analysed, the available tools and technologies are described, and a variety of modern systems are presented in detail together with discussions of deployments. This is an invaluable resource for election professionals, researchers and policy makers alike. Key Features: Reviews both technical and social aspects of e-voting Covers e-voting protocols, attacks reported on e-voting and new developments on the use of e-voting Designed for government election practitioners and policy makers who want to understand the threats and opportunities in e-voting and assess its suitability for future elections
Many election officials look to electronic voting systems as a means for improving their ability to more effectively conduct and administer elections. At the same time, many information technologists and activists have raised important concerns regarding the security of such systems. Policy makers are caught in the midst of a controversy with both political and technological overtones. The public debate about electronic voting is characterized by a great deal of emotion and rhetoric. Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting describes the important questions and issues that election officials, policy makers, and informed citizens should ask about the use of computers and information technology in the electoral processâ€"focusing the debate on technical and policy issues that need resolving. The report finds that while electronic voting systems have improved, federal and state governments have not made the commitment necessary for e-voting to be widely used in future elections. More funding, research, and public education are required if e-voting is to become viable.
As the plugged-in presidential campaign has arguably reached maturity, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age challenges popular claims about the democratizing effect of Digital Communication Technologies (DCTs). Analyzing campaign strategies, structures, and tactics from the past six presidential election cycles, Stromer-Galley reveals how, for all their vaunted inclusivity and tantalizing promise of increased two-way communication between candidates and the individuals who support them, DCTs have done little to change the fundamental dynamics of campaigns. The expansion of new technologies has presented candidates with greater opportunities to micro-target potential voters, cheaper and easier ways to raise money, and faster and more innovative ways to respond to opponents. The need for communication control and management, however, has made campaigns slow and loathe to experiment with truly interactive internet communication technologies. Citizen involvement in the campaign historically has been and, as this book shows, continues to be a means to an end: winning the election for the candidate. For all the proliferation of apps to download, polls to click, videos to watch, and messages to forward, the decidedly undemocratic view of controlled interactivity is how most campaigns continue to operate. In the fully revised second edition, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age examines election cycles from 1996, when the World Wide Web was first used for presidential campaigning, through 2016 when campaigns had the full power of advertising on social media sites. As the book charts changes in internet communication technologies, it shows how, even as campaigns have moved from a mass mediated to a networked paradigm, the possibilities these shifts in interactivity seem to promise for citizen input and empowerment remain farther than a click away.
Secure Electronic Voting is an edited volume, which includes chapters authored by leading experts in the field of security and voting systems. The chapters identify and describe the given capabilities and the strong limitations, as well as the current trends and future perspectives of electronic voting technologies, with emphasis in security and privacy. Secure Electronic Voting includes state-of-the-art material on existing and emerging electronic and Internet voting technologies, which may eventually lead to the development of adequately secure e-voting systems. This book also includes an overview of the legal framework with respect to voting, a description of the user requirements for the development of a secure e-voting system, and a discussion on the relevant technical and social concerns. Secure Electronic Voting includes, also, three case studies on the use and evaluation of e-voting systems in three different real world environments.
