Nowadays we are living in an information society which has different characteristics from an industrial society. This causes a lot of changes in all kinds of social fields. The political process is not an exemption. That is, the changes in political c...
Nowadays we are living in an information society which has different characteristics from an industrial society. This causes a lot of changes in all kinds of social fields. The political process is not an exemption. That is, the changes in political communication cause the political process to change a lot. Its most pronounced source of change is Information Communication Technology, called ICT.
In this information society, ICT is being applied to the actual means of a representative democracy, election, and combined as 'electronic voting'. This is because participation in voting has decreased and dead votes have appeared even though it is the intrinsic way in which people can deliver or express their opinions directly. So in the United States, Brazil and Japan, electronic voting is being adopted to deliver increased voter participation, increased voter convenience, and improved voter interest at reduced costs. It's not clear whether it works well or not.
Today, the use of the internet is increasing at a rapid rate. But, there are some problems such as 'Ballot Security', 'Digital Divide' etc, which mean that there can be an information gap between someone who can use the computer and someone who can's as well as, the manipulation of voting by hacking into and electronic voting system since there isn't any proper law or regulation against that.
My doctor's thesis aims at the realization of popular sovereignty by electronic voting. On the basis of all above, this study is arranged as follows:
In chapter 1, I express the purpose of this study, establish the scope of my study and the method of my study. The purpose of this study is to adapt electronic voting and realize popular sovereignty. The scope of my study is democracy and principles of sovereignty, including representative systems and direct democracy, election systems, and so on. Of course this study is related to adapting electronic voting and functional and substantial principles of sovereignty.
In chapter 2, Examines the relation between democracy and popular sovereignty. I think that democracy means the functional approach of the principle of popular sovereignty. Democracy is not an ideology but a process because a nation's decisions are not fixed but found in the process of debate.
Also I consider electronic democracy. It is needed in the environment of modern democracy. Electronic democracy should be used to improve representative democracy and to activate deliberative democracy. For this, it is necessary to implement electronic voting. I explain the need for an electronic voting system.
In chapter 3, I demonstrate the electronic voting system. The concept of the electronic voter is also necessary. The electronic voting system does not include only the voting machines. It is integrated with other complex systems such as electronic registration machines, receipt printers, and servers to name a few. I consider the possibility of breakdown of any of these systems.
Further, I examine how the system has been established in the United States, Brazil and Japan. The United States, a representatively developed country, introduced electronic voting for resolving problems evoked from existing election systems. However, under strong federal- ism and a decentralized election system, the United States has faced deadlock as to the implementation of electronic voting systems.
On the other hand, Brazil, which is representatively underdeveloped, has imported an electronic voting system for resolving election scandals in the past through modernization of its voting system. The centralized administration system of weak federalism contributed to the successful settlement of the national electronic voting system within a short term.
Further, I discuss electronic voting systems, specially focusing on illegal facts of electronic voting system, example 'Ballot Security' and 'Digital Divide'.
In chapter 4, I conclude my study, with all the discussion, summ- arizations, and proposal of the measures to improve and localize the electronic voting, which pursue the promotion of political representation as a representative democratic goal and the computerization of election adminstration system in a good way.
Therefore we need to study more about this electronic voting system and should find better ways to resolve those problems.