Regulating i-Voting Within Countries and Parties
Résumé
This chapter is a first explorative attempt to study how and to what extent states have regulated i-voting in common law and in general elections so far, in order to strike a balance between adherence to democratic norms and management of the challenges imposed by technical aspects. The chapter first discusses the legal definition and framework of i-voting in Europe. This is followed by a discussion on how to analyse the process of i-voting on the basis of electoral cycles. The aim is to build an analytical framework for assessing the regulations and standards that states adopt for implementing their i-voting systems and that are or can be used by political parties too. The analytical framework builds on the main relevant democratic norms (participation, representation, competiveness, responsiveness and transparency) and technical aspects (security, verification process, data ownership and control) that need to be considered by both parties and states to achieve legitimate and effective e-decision-making. The chapter provides insight into the type and nature of regulations that need to be considered in the intra-party context.