Voto Electrónico Y Participación

S tory

Can e-voting increase electoral participation?
Considering the falling participation rate in EP elections, efforts to increase it and get
Europeans involved in European policy are crucial. One way forward may be e-voting,
especially among young voters who can do it between watching YouTube videos and
checking Facebook. The Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessmentboard (STOA) held a hearing on on the pros and cons of e-voting on 17 March.
As Parliament's Silvana Koch-Mehrin Vice President put it: "How we can involve citizens is
important from a European pointof view "
Bernd Beckert from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research presented the pros and cons to MEPs, saying "we already have e-commerce, e-education, eadministration - whyshouldn't we also elect our parliaments over internet?"
He said by offering e-voting, young people could be motivated to take part in elections
they would otherwise ignore.
He said that E-voting isthe final step in the process of an IT-based modernisation of the
entire administrative process and could reduce costs.
However, he also said that e-voting is not the same as e-commerce - it's anessential part
of democracy and if there's anything that potentially threatens the core values of it, like
flawed elections, it must be avoided.
He also raised concerns about transparency as voterscannot be sure that the vote is being transmitted, voters cannot verify if their vote is correctly stored and counted.
He also warned that there are many potential security flaws.
Estonia - the mostprominent example
In Estonia e-voting was introduced in 2005 and has been used for national as well as EP
elections. It works using a digital signature card and two PIN numbers.
The percentage ofe-votes cast has increased from 2% of all votes cast in 2005 to 5.4% in
2007, 15% in 2009 and reached 24.3% in 2011.
Participants agreed that the effect of e-voting on voter participation remains...