Resources

What follows is a set of articles useful for understanding the current state of the internet voting (IV) literature. For individual articles about specific types of voting, you should check out the pages on this wiki.

You might also be interested in taking a look at our Zotero page, accessible at "https://www.zotero.org/groups/restartdemocracy".

Introduction to IV

 * "Ishwari Bendre, Theresa Juarez, Chris Li, Xida Zheng. “My Vote is an I – Vote!” 2011." This paper gives an overview on the topic of internet voting and outlines some of the technical challenges of implementing a secure internet voting system.
 * Nicole Goodman, Jon H. Pammett, Joan DeBardeleben. “A Comparative Assessment of Electronic Voting”, 2010. This report by Elections Canada outlines the potential benefits and drawbacks associated with internet voting and discusses the present state of internet voting trials in Canada and Europe.
 * "Mattias Mikkola and Joel Ahlgren. “Net Voting” 2011." This paper analyzes the Swedish voting process and outlines necessary conditions that a secure Swedish internet voting system would have to have.

Comprehensive Survey of IV Systems

 * "Ben Adida - Advances in Cryptographic Voting Systems" Ben Adida's 2006 PhD dissertation provides a great (if a bit outdated) summary on different voting protocols.
 * "US. Election Assistance Commission - A Survey of Internet Voting" This is a quite recent (released Sept. 14, 2011) summary on internet voting protocols that have been tested in the real world. The focus is more on what has been done, rather than what can be done.

Estonia

 * “Alan S. Gerber, Donald P. Green, and Christopher W. Larimer. “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review, 2008” This paper analyzes the impact of social pressure on voter turnout, a
 * “R. Michael Alvarez, Thad E. Hall, and Alexander H. Trechsel. “Internet Voting in Comparative Perspective: The Case of Estonia.” PS: Political Science & Politics 42, no. 3 (2009): 497-505.” This article analyzes IV’s impact on Estonian voter participation.
 * "Alexander H. Trechsel, Guido Schwerdt, Fabian Breuer, R. Michael Alvarez. “Report for the Council of Europe: Internet Voting in the March 2007 Parliamentary Elections in Estonia.” Council of Europe (31 July 2007)." This report analyzes the effect of Estonian internet voting on voter participation with respect to the 2007 Parliamentary elections. It concludes that "e-voting is completely neutral with respect to... gender, income, education and the type of settlement" provided that the issue of the digital divide is controlled for.
 * “Alec Charles. “The electronic state: Estonia’s new media revolution” Journal of Contemporary European Research 5, no. 1 (2009): 97–113.” This article examines the impact of Estonia’s development of new media technologies (such as internet voting) on society at large. It notes a high degree of skepticism among even educated citizens with respect to e-government.

Digital Divide

 * “France Bélanger and Lemuria Carter. “The Digital Divide and Internet Voting Acceptance.” In International Conference on the Digital Society, 0:307-310. Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society, 2010.” This article analyzes the effect of the digital divide on internet voting, concluding that internet voting is subject to the digital divide while noting the challenges that this conclusion produces.

General Articles on Voter Turnout

 * "Riker, William H., and Peter C. Ordeshook. “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting.” The American Political Science Review 62, no. 1 (March 1, 1968): 25-42." This article analyzes voter participation from the perspective of Game Theory, and was discussed on our blog "here." This is where the formula PB + D > C comes from. Since the probability that one's vote will decide the election is very small, the key players in this equation are D (civic duty) and C (costs of voting.) We know IV reduces C, the essential question is its effect on D.
 * “Benz, Matthias, and Alois Stutzer. “Are Voters Better Informed When They Have a Larger Say in Politics? Evidence for the European Union and Switzerland.” SSRN eLibrary (November 2002)” This paper supports the conclusion that extended political participation rights leads to voters being better informed on political matters. It’s unclear, however, whether internet voting would involve greater participation rights.