In this paper I discuss e-voting through the theories of Robert Dahl and Carole Pateman.  Dahls view of an electoral democracy and Patemans participatory democracy is used as a foundation for the discussion. A brief introduction to e-democracy is also provided and used in the discussion because of the strong conection between e-voting and edemocracy. E-voting is explained mostly with the help of understanding the Norwegian and Estonian experiences. The aspects of e-voting that is focused on include trust for the system, accessibility and secrecy and freedom of the vote. In the results I can show that e-voting has both positive and negative inpacts on Dahl and Patemans theories and why it is controversial. The results also points to the positive inpacts e-democracy might have on both the theories and on democracy altogether.

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Previous comparative research into the determinants of voting using aggregate data has suffered from two limitations: it relied predominantly on country-level data; and it seldom ventured beyond a consideration of one or two types of elections. In order to overcome these shortcomings, we use an original dataset in which data are aggregated to sub-national units; and include examples of national, sub-national, and supra-national elections. A total of 66 elections between 1995 and 2008 are included, drawn from ten Western European countries: Belgium, England, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. For each country, the same sub-national geographical units are used for all election types, allowing the direct comparison of the effects of our selected institutional and socio-demographic variables. We find that the effects of the institutional determinants of voting are substantially and systematically reduced as the salience of the election type increases. For the socio-demographic variables, no such systematic relationship with salience is found. However, for some variables, the direction of effect is the opposite for European Parliament elections to that found for Municipal and Lower House elections, and supports the idea that EP elections differ sufficiently from sub-national, second-order elections to justify their ‘third-order’ classification. When we turn our attention to the effects of the socio-demographic variables in five individual countries, we find that the results are often consistent across different types of elections, and for all five countries. However, we also find that the effects of some variables have different effects in different countries. In these cases, we suggest explanations which relate turnout differences to wider political and social factors.

No description available.

Electronic elections, also known as i-voting might help in removing the crisis in our democracy, which is reflected in non-cooperation in the opportunity of expressing their opinions during direct elections. Automation that is brought by i-voting process could mean reducing the risk of human error and also the risk of votes manipulation. On the other hand, the introduction of i-voting means the rise of new risks and vulnerabilities, which could attacker exploit to breach the security i-voting process. Thesis analyzes the Estonian electronic election system and system SERVE in terms of infrastructure and functionality of their components, identifies and suggests the basic possibilities of attacks on these systems. A special section is devoted to the electronic election system in Norway, where the cryptographic theory, which is the base for this system, was reviewed and the evidence that proofs the safety of this system was designed. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Electronic elections, also known as i-voting might help in removing the crisis in our democracy, which is reflected in non-cooperation in the opportunity of expressing their opinions during direct elections. A reasonable set up of information and communication technologies in technical and financial terms could help that elections would be attended by more voters. The implementation of electronic elections could achieve that the way of governance in the democratic republic will be truly represented by the view of the vast majority of people who are authorized to elect. The introduction of the i-voting system could be efficient from the financial point of view. This electoral process could reduce the risk of human error as well as the risk of manipulation of votes since most of the processes would be automated. Thesis proposes a definition of the basic requirements for an ideal i-voting system which compares the requirements for ensuring the safety of two previously proposed electronic electoral systems. Thanks to a deeper analysis of these two systems the thesis also describes the imperfection in safety and it raises the possibility of basic attacks on components and systems properties due to imperfections in security.

Typescript, etc. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Voting theory as been explored mathematically since the 1780’s. Many people have tackled parts of it using various tools, and now we shall look at it through the eyes of a representation theorist. Each vote can be thought of as a permutation of the symmetric group, Sn, and a poll is similar to a linear combination of these elements. Specifically, we will focus on translating and generalizing the works of Donald Saari into more algebraic terms to discover not just one space, but a whole isotypic component essential to positional voting.

In voting theory, simple questions can lead to convoluted and sometimes paradoxical results. Recently, mathematician Donald Saari used geometric insights to study various voting methods. He argued that a particular positional voting method (namely that proposed by Borda) minimizes the frequency of paradoxes. We present an approach to similar ideas which draw from group theory and algebra. In particular, we employ tools from representation theory on the symmetric group to elicit some of the natural behaviors of voting profiles. We also make generalizations to similar results for partially ranked data.

This dissertation demonstrates that the presence of the initiative process alters voting behavior in the selection of candidates. By allowing constituents to bypass their elected officials to directly select policy, the availability of the initiative leads to substitution between voters' concern over substantive versus symbolic representation. In states with heavy use of the initiative, votes for candidates depend less on the policy positions of the candidates but more on personal characteristics like integrity, attractiveness and descriptive representation. Predictions are derived from a formalization of the theory and are empirically tested using diverse types of data. I demonstrate diminished concern over policy positions through survey data. As use of the initiative increases, a multi-level model demonstrates that votes in that state are less dependent upon the similarity between respondent and candidate policy positions. Increased concern over the integrity of candidates demonstrated through decreased conviction rates for political corruption by the Department of Justice, and increased concern for descriptive representation is demonstrated by a greater balance in the gender of legislators in initiative states. Finally, I find that the personal attractiveness of legislators has a greater effect on votes in initiative states. This theory of substitution depends upon direct democracy leading to more representative policy which is a highly contested claim. This dissertation supports the substitution claim by demonstrating that the initiative does improve representation. I demonstrate how representation should be measured conceptually and statistically, replicate previous models, and then test the theory on an extensive new dataset.