The case for election technology
Abstract
Information technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives. Finally, after years of resistance, election technology is slowly helping the world’s democracies increase transparency, facilitate turnout and reduce the cost of running elections whilst increasing integrity and security. The current article analyses some of the longstanding arguments against the use of technology in the election process, and the responses made by experts, including the demonstrated benefits of well-designed election technology. An entire section on security is provided, as are references to some implementations around the world and to the Election Automation Maturity Model. The article also touches briefly on the tools of Internet and mobile voting.
Digital dilemmas: the unintended consequences of election technology
ABSTRACT Digital technologies are increasingly used in elections around the world. Where the resources and capacity of the state are limited, some have argued that such technologies make it possible to rapidly “leapfrog” to cleaner and more credible elections. This article argues that the growing use of these technologies has been driven by the fetishization of technology rather than by rigorous assessment of their effectiveness; that they may create significant opportunities for corruption that (among other things) vitiate their potential impact; and that they carry significant opportunity costs. Indeed, precisely because new technology tends to deflect attention away from more “traditional” strategies, the failure of digital checks and balances often renders an electoral process even more vulnerable to rigging than it was before. These observations are not intended as a manifesto against the digitization of elections; apart from anything else, we argue that the drivers of the adoption of these new methods are too powerful to resist. But the analysis draws attention to the importance of more careful assessments of the problems, as well as the benefits, of such technologies – and to the need for more careful planning in their deployment.
Fission and fusion of parties in Estonia, 1987–1999
Abstract We provide a schematic history of contemporary Estonian political parties, 1987–99, in which we specify dates of party origin and subsequent fissions and fusions of some fifty movements and parties, and we briefly discuss some important factors and features in party formation. Our analysis begins with the seminal 1987–94 period that marked the rebirth of Estonian democracy, with an extension to two subsequent parliamentary elections (1995 and 1999). We argue that the early phase of Estonian party competition generally exemplifies what we call “kaleidoscopic parties”: parties that form around leaders rather than durable issues and lack any organizational permanency or any real voter attachment. However, the rate of formation of new groups has decreased, and the major parties may be becoming more stable than in the past. While there is some evidence of a left-right patterning now emerging in the political debate in Estonia, the parties have not aligned themselves along such a left-right continuum.