Today, the information society provides easy, effective and safe access to various information wherever and whenever we need them; therefore, attempts to introduce information technology solutions to the field of executing one of the basic democratic rights – elections are no exception. The implementation of internet into the electoral process does not only give rise to socio-political and technical questions, but also from the perspective of legitimacy of such proceedings.
In the master’s thesis, I summarize the development of e-commerce in the public and state administration, the concept of electronic elections, attempts of the introduction of electronic elections and examples of good practices in Slovenia, Norway and Canada, and explain the voting process at the first internet elections in the world – in Estonia. We analyse the concerns and dilemmas, as well as advantages of the implementation of electronic elections. Among others, the introduction of electronic elections also means a possibility to reduce the costs during the electoral process, but mostly it puts a stop to the downward trend of voting participation, which is a pressing problem of all Western democracies.
Ensuring safety, transparency and secrecy is a problem that puts the introduction and execution of electronic election under question. In my opinion, the solution is blockchain technology. The nature of its system enables the implementation of electronic elections.
Due to the technological progress so far and positive attitude of the general public in terms of accepting the blockchain technology, we can assume that electronic voting is only a click away from reality, but only to support the traditional way of voting, at home as well as abroad.
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