Voting in E-participation: A set of requirements to support accountability and trust by electoral committees

Abstract

Voting is an important part of electronic participation whenever it comes to finding a common opinion among the many participants. The impact of the voting result on the outcome of the e-participation process might differ a lot as voting can relate to approving, polling or co-decision making. The greater the impact of the electronic voting on the outcomes of the e-participation process, the more important become the regulations and technologies that stipulate the voting system and its procedures. People need to have trust in the voting system in order to accept the outcomes. Hence, it is important to use thoroughly trustworthy, auditable and secure voting systems in e-participation; especially whenever the voting within the e-participation process is likely to have a significant impact on the outcome. This paper analyses the verdict of the Austrian Constitutional Court in relation to the repeal of the Elections to the Austrian Federation of Students in 2009 where electronic voting was piloted as additional remote channel for casting a ballot. The court states its perspectives on elections and electronic voting which serve as sources for the derivation of legal requirements for electronic voting in this paper, namely requirements for accountability and trust by the electoral committee. Then, possible solutions for the requirements based on scholarly literature are described. The paper does not intend to explicitly provide e-voting solutions for elections, but instead proposes to serve as a basis for discussion of electronic voting in different e-participation scenarios.