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In an effort to increase turnout at elections the UK government has been piloting electronic voting. At the 2002 local elections five councils tested remote Internet voting for the first time. Swindon Borough Council conducted the largest pilot, offering remote Internet voting to all voters. Almost 15,000 voters were surveyed as to their motivation for choosing their voting method. Turnout did increase by 3.5 per cent but it is impossible to state conclusively that this was due to the availability of the Internet voting option, since most Internet voters were already regular voters. Future pilots should allow a more conclusive assessment of the impact on turnout of remote Internet voting.

To provide practitioners of information management with an overview and framework to explore the various controversies associated with the methods of traditional methods of voting with electronically enhanced voting via the internet (I‐voting). The current paper is centered on the assumption that I‐voting is the next logical step in applying online information‐gathering and retrieval technologies to the field of e‐government.

A review of the applied literature on electronically enhanced voting methods with potentials associated with internet voting, as well as from practical experience, resulted in a basic model for discussion of the emergent nature of I‐voting.

I‐voting would reduce the cost for staffing polling stations, and also the funds needed to pay for voting machines. I‐voting could also reduce the number of errors made by both the voters and the electoral administrators, and allow for easier adoption of uniform standards in the ballot format, since it could be transmitted via the internet from a central election agency to all local and regional polling places. Bridging the digital divide and internet security issues may be the most important barriers that must be overcome if I‐voting becomes a viable option in the USA.

It may be years, if ever, before a truly secure, relatively risk‐free internet service, such as I‐voting, is developed. However, despite the controversies associated with election fraud, the numerous current voting systems that are in place suffer from the same problems associated with online informational exchanges; but, for the most part, nations still conduct their businesses and the political systems are still relatively stable.

Owing to recent voting débâcles in the USA, the public is demanding a more reliable and secure method of voting. Currently, many nations are moving more toward electronically enhanced voting methods with the long‐term goal being internet voting. Unfortunately, there are heated debates about the pros and cons of handing over the right to vote, using a system that is prone to security risks from outside sources.

In the short term, there should be increased interest in establishing national and international standards for testing and certification of electronic and I‐voting systems and their IT‐infrastructure. It is a basic premise of the present study that voting online increases voter participation, which can only be viewed in a positive light.

The purpose of this paper is to present factors that affect e-voting adoption in the Middle East and, in particular, Jordan. Changing the election voting method for the people in Jordan from traditional voting to interactive voting via the web needs exploration to understand the factors affecting e-voting adoption by citizens. Therefore, this paper reports on a study undertaken to identify the main factors that would influence citizens’ intentions to adopt the use of an e-voting system in Jordan, using an established e-government adoption model and a theoretical framework consisting of the diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM).

A survey study of 267 Jordanian citizens who were internet users investigated the influence of the aforementioned factors on the adoption and use of e-voting websites. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

Contrary to the previous established e-government adoption model, beliefs and website design were not found to be significant predictors of the intention to use e-voting websites. The paper found that trust in government, attitudes, perceived usefulness and complexity were significant factors in Jordanian citizens’ intentions to use e-voting websites.

This is one of few studies to have used an established e-government adoption model to test the adoption of e-voting as one of the e-government applications. In addition, this paper is one of the few to examine the factors that influence the adoption and use of e-voting systems by citizens in the Middle East. Although the previous e-government adoption model showed the impact of attitude to be non-significant on e-government adoption, this paper shows the significant influence of attitudes on citizens’ intentions to use e-voting websites. On the other hand, this paper supports previous e-government adoption studies in showing the importance of including constructs of the DOI theory (relative advantage and complexity) and those related to TAM (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) when considering the topic of e-government adoption in a Middle Eastern country, although previous studies have shown similarities between these constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the risks associated with online voting and to compare them with more traditional voting modes.

A modified version of the Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation (OCTAVE) approach from the CERT Coordination Center® at Carnegie‐Mellon University is used for developing a framework for comparing threats for different stakeholders. In addition, these risks and threats are quantified, offering an opportunity to conduct a multi‐mode risk analysis in a manner independent of the underlying voting modes. The framework is exemplified using data from officials who had been involved in an actual municipal election, in which registered voters were given the option of voting through the Internet.

What is instructive in the context of this study is that the “low‐tech” threats such as large‐scale mail theft of election notifications and family member coercion may in fact be significant for Internet voting, and the sensationalized threats mentioned by the media may pale in comparison in terms of vulnerabilities.

Conclusions drawn from applying the methods may be very sensitive to parameters chosen for quantification, especially since estimates of probabilities of threats may vary in order of magnitude.

This paper demonstrates a quantitative and comparative analysis for Internet voting, something which does not seem to be adequately addressed in the literature.

This paper aims to put the focus on political disaffection that the voters may have and its impact on their resistance to the changes, thereby influencing intention to adopt Internet voting. This study also examines the impact of perceived risk and technological skills on the trust of the Internet technology and informal networks, such as social influence and media influence on the trust of the government.

To empirically test the model, an online survey is administered to 851 people who are eligible to vote.

The findings show that positive media influence and social influence also significantly impact trust in government but trust in government does not necessarily decrease resistance to change and positively impact intention to adopt eVoting. Also, the resistance to change was shown to significantly influence the intention to use Internet voting.

A primary potential limitation of this study is the use of convenience sampling, which may lead to self-selection bias that limits the generalization of our research to all citizens.

Government institutions, as well as political parties, can use the findings of this research to understand how political dissatisfaction such as apathy and cynicism can increase trust in technology and lead to higher participation in online voting.

While the focus on previous literature has been heavily on security and system requirements, this study expands existing research by exploring voting habits, political disaffection, the resistance of change and informal influence on intention to use online voting.

The first American internet voting (I‐voting) implementation was in 2000. Since then many attempts and trials have taken place in this field. This paper aims to analyze these various attempts and discuss their benefits and vulnerabilities.

I‐voting can provide ease to elderly citizens and people with disabilities. Some also believe that the convenience that the internet offers will attract young voters, and hence increase voter turnout. I‐voting can also solve the problems of late delivery of absentee ballots “which leads to discarding the votes”.

Election officials believe that I‐voting can be considered a valid voting option if it offers at least the same level of security as traditional remote voting methods. On the other hand, many data security experts doubt that the current internet infrastructure is safe enough to support such an important function. I‐voting is still far from being a voting option for US citizens residing in the States; however, it is considered a promising alternative to facilitate voting for those living overseas.

The authors believe this paper contains the most comprehensive analysis of the I‐voting trials that have been carried out in the USA over the last decade.

E-corporate governance or the use of technologies and information systems (ISs) in corporate governance, is still a subject that is too seldom addressed in business research. This paper is at the intersection between two fields of research (corporate governance and the management of ISs), which are interdependent in ways that are still unexplored. The paper analyzes the implications of internet voting (IV) at shareholders’ annual meetings (SAM) for the corporate governance of listed companies in France, in particular for the relationship between executives and shareholders. Most of the studies that have dealt with IV at SAM have focused on techno-legal issues and were often conducted by business law researchers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of the new voting system through the prism of corporate governance.

The authors proceeded by triangulation of methods. This qualitative study is based on observations, interviews and documentary analysis. It assessed the IV implications for both the issuing companies and the shareholders.

The new voting system brings undeniable competitive advantage to the issuing company and facilitates shareholders’ activism, yet it has serious risks both for the corporations and for certain categories of the shareholder. Interestingly, the authors propose an original and field-grounded typology that distinguishes the risks and benefits associated with IV in relation to executives’ attitudes.

The paper shows that the resolving of identified deficiencies with IV development could contribute to the alignment of companies’ interests with those of shareholders. Moreover, the study calls for policymakers to appoint an official body to regulate the practical implementation of the new system and to prevent its dissemination being held hostage to the executives’ willingness.

An original aspect of this research lies in the effective operationalization of the constructs of corporate governance effectiveness with a view to examining corporate governance as a set of technologically mediated practices. Moreover, this study emphasizes the key role of the construct of “executives’ willingness” in facilitating/impeding IV diffusion. This underlies their attempts to reverse the corporate governance relationship.

In 2010, the National Mediation Board (NMB) decided to base Railway Labor Act representation election outcomes on a simple majority of those voting, rather than on the majority of all eligible voters, as had been required earlier. This was widely expected to make it easier for unions to win rights to recognition in the railway and airline industries. We demonstrate that investors expected that this change would favor unions, just as they earlier had expected rule changes that made voting easier (in 2002 and 2007) to be favorable to unions, affecting stock prices of railway and airline corporations. After the 2010 change in election procedure, between 77% and 91% of all eligible employees returned ballots in NMB elections, demonstrating that a significant portion of nonvoters were not opposed to union representation, but simply were unwilling or were unable to vote. We conclude that the current voting process is fairer than the old one. However, it has not resulted in a tide of union success in these representation elections. Apparently scholars, the parties themselves, and investors all over-estimated the practical consequences of changing NMB representation election procedures.

To identify the factors that influence adoption of e‐voting services by citizens between the ages of 18‐24.

This study uses Carter and Belanger's (2005) model of e‐government adoption to assess young voters' intention to use an online voting system. The study integrates constructs from technology acceptance, diffusion of innovation, and web trust models. A survey is administered to 208 young voters. The data is analyzed using multiple regression analysis.

Results indicate that user perceptions of compatibility, usefulness, and trust significantly impact their intention to use an electronic‐voting system. The model explains 76 percent of the variance in young voters' intention to use an e‐voting system.

The study only explores the perceptions of one age group. Future studies could use the model to access adoption perceptions of a more diverse pool of citizens.

Government agencies should emphasize the benefits of this electronic service to young voters. If marketed properly, the convenience and compatibility of e‐voting may be influential enough to motivate this normally apathetic demographic to participate in the election process.

This study explores adoption of internet voting by young citizens. An understanding of the factors that influence this demographics' intention to use e‐voting systems can be used to increase voter participation. The findings of this study also lay the foundation for future studies on e‐voting adoption.

Currently, electronic election is one of the most popular issues of e-democracy. This has led to the development of applications and several security mechanisms to address such necessity. The problem that arises is that such applications are created either on demand for a specific election process, or experimentally for scientific purposes. The purpose of this study is to present a new e-voting system, called VOTAN. The VOTAN system involves a combination of new features with basic advantages, the implementation as open source software, its modular organization covering the functional requirements of a typical electronic voting system (EVS) and the capability of data analysis of candidates and voters.

VOTAN stands for VOTes Analyzer. It is a secure application for the conduct of electronic elections through the internet based on its own security protocol. It also includes a data analysis component which analyzes the election results and investigates the factors that play a crucial role. The major advantages of the system are that it is an open source and includes a data analysis module that can distinguish important variables from the elections and help make predictions for the outcome based on the selected variables. It is a practical solution to the existing e-voting applications and is ideal for small communities such as organizations, universities and chambers.

Its main advantage, compared to similar e-voting systems, is the integration of the data analysis component. The analysis of the data produced from elections is considered a critical process to fully comprehend the outcome of the elections and its correlation to specific attributes/variables of the election process. The data analysis module is a unique feature of VOTAN. It facilitates the selection of the most important attributes that influence the outcome of elections and creates a mathematical model to predict the outcome of an election based on the selected attributes. The method used in the module is the LDA.

The originality of the paper derives from the data analysis component and its security protocol/schema that fulfils several requirements.