International audienceElectronic voting systems are those which depend on some electronic technology for their correct functionality. Many of them depend on such technology for the communication of election data. Depending on one or more communication channels in order to run elections poses many technical challenges with respect to verifiability, dependability, security, anonymity and trust. Changing the way in which people vote has many social and political implications. The role of election administrators and (independent) observers is fundamentally different when complex communications technology is involved in the process. Electronic voting has been deployed in many different types of election throughout the world for several decades. Despite lack of agreement on whether this has been a ‘success', there has been-in the last few years-enormous investment in remote electronic voting (primarily as a means of exploiting the internet as the underlying communication technology). This paper reviews the past, present and future of on-line voting. It reports on the role of technology transfer, from research to practice, and the range of divergent views concerning the adoption of on-line voting for critical election

No abstract

Voting technologies frame the voting experience. Different ways of presenting information to voters, registering voter choices and counting ballots may change the voting experience and cause individuals to re-evaluate the legitimacy of the electoral process. Yet few field experiments have evaluated how voting technologies affect the voting experience. This article uses unique data from a recent e-voting field experiment in Salta, Argentina to study these questions. It employs propensity-score matching methods to measure the causal effect of replacing traditional voting technology with e-voting on the voting experience. The study's main finding is that while e-voters perceive the new technology as easier to use and more likely to register votes as intended—and support replacing traditional voting technologies with e-voting—the new technologies also raise some concerns about ballot secrecy.

This paper analyzes the influence of alternative voting technologies on electoral outcomes in multi-party systems. Using data from a field experiment conducted during the 2005 legislative election in Argentina, we examine the role of information effects associated with alternative voting devices on the support for the competing parties. We find that differences in the type of information displayed and how it was presented across devices favored some parties to the detriment of others. The impact of voting technologies was found to be larger than in two-party systems, and could lead to changes in election results. We conclude that authorities in countries moving to adopt new voting systems should carefully take the potential partisan advantages induced by different technologies into account when evaluating their implementation.

No abstract