3 e-Voting as the magic ballot for European Parliamentary elections?

As access to the new communication and information technologies have diffused throughout post-industrial societies, the idea of using electronic tools to modernise electoral administration has been widely debated, with potential benefits of greater efficiency, speed, and accuracy. ² Perhaps the most important and influential argument concerns the claim that remote electronic voting will make the process more convenient and thereby strengthen electoral turnout and civic engagement, especially for the wired younger generation. ³ If citizens will not come to the polls, it is argued, why not bring the polls closer to citizens? This is especially pertinent for European Parliamentary elections where any potential gains in voting participation from new technology are particularly important for the European Union, given that only 49.2 per cent of all European citizens voted in the June 1999 elections, haemorrhaging from almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of the electorate just two decades earlier. ⁴