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This study aims to revisit and extends the work of Rosacker and Rosacker (2012) that called for increased interdisciplinary efforts to address and solve the critical issues (critical success factors) facing technologically-enabled remote-access voting platforms. It builds upon the background platform presented there, which included an historical timeline of information and communication technologies and an e-voting literature review, and extends that work by providing a state-of-the-art update and review of the rapidly changing voter environment from societal, technological and experiential studies over the past decade. Specific focus is directed at technology-enabled, remote-access voting, while also considering the important role technological advances can play in improving voter registration/confirmation procedures.

First, a brief review of significant societal and technological changes, including the rapid evolution of the internet of things, is undertaken to frame the discussion. Second, a sample of several technology-enabled, remote-access voting experiments are reviewed and critiqued. Third, currently available technical solutions targeting technology-enabled voter registration and vote casting are offered as the next step in the process that will ultimately lead to remote-access voting becoming widely deployed across smart devices. Finally, some contemporaneous conclusions are tendered.

Society and technology-enabled devices have each witnessed myriad changes and advancements in the second decade of the 21st century. These have led to numerous remote-access voting experiments across the globe that have overwhelmingly proven the concept of technology-enabled, remote-access voting to be viable while also identifying/reasserting issues (critical success factors) that continue to restrain its full implementation. Importantly, none of the problems identified is fatal to the concept.

This study considers the issue of technologically-enabled, remote-access voting focussing on the impacts associated with the portfolio of recent societal and technological advancements including the many vexing concerns and issues presented by the coronavirus pandemic. Social distancing is limiting access to the traditional methods of in-person voting for both election officials and voters bringing into question the November 2020 US national election. Calls for expanded mail voting options and the requisite federal funding required to support these efforts are increasing, widespread and broadly persuasive. Wholly missing in this debate is an exhaustive consideration and discussion of technologically enhanced, remote-access voting systems and their role in filling the void.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a timely discussion of the important topic of remote‐access voting technology.

First, an introduction to the topic is offered; second the existing state of the art is considered; third, a brief history of electronic and internet voting methods is presented; and fourth, a short list of critical success factors for remote‐access voting is presented. Finally, a conclusion is offered surrounding how academics and practitioners can collaboratively proceed to address the salient issues and barriers that currently prohibit the advancement of remote‐access voting.

There is a brief and largely successful history involving applications of information communication technologies (ICTs) and computer technology to assist in data capture and tabulation of democratic elections. While several critical issues have been identified, none has been so significant that an end‐game strategy should be invoked rather than continued innovation. Concurrently, the business world has witnessed an expanding use of computer‐based infrastructures and enhanced ICTs to facilitate the processing of remote‐access commercial transactions. These advancements have provided a rich opportunity to seek out, identify, and address the substantive operational issues permitting the successful expansion of a variety of business methods, models, and processes. While these successes have provided a solid foundation upon which e‐government voting systems can be attempted, such a process improvement has been elusive to this date with many of the real issues and concerns seeming to be too large to resolve.

The paper considers the important issue of remote‐access voting as a means for supporting the expansion and refinement of democratic processes across the world through increased citizen participation.

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.

The research is aimed at developing an efficient electronic voting platform that would offer distinct advantages over traditional paper ballot voting and the available electronic voting systems.

Based on the analysis of the existing technologies and the authors' prior findings, electronic voting was approached as a public information and communication technologies service.

A new methodology of forming election event outcomes is proposed, which is based on the outcomes of internet transactions between web portals such as “The Guarantor” and millions of remote electors, voting event officials and independent observers (auditors). The paper presents the structure of a state‐scale voting system that collects, processes publishes the results of different election events.

The system can accept votes cast online by internet or SMS, by mail, via electronic kiosks and by special computer‐filled paper ballots at polling stations. The system also provides a number of new possibilities for network verification of voter registration and the individual votes without compromising the voters' privacy. A model implementation of a web portal for remote monitoring of election events and individual outcome verification is presented.

The aim of the research described was to identify reasons for differences between discourses on electronic voting in the UK and The Netherlands, from a qualitative point of view.

From both countries, eight e‐voting experts were interviewed on their expectations, risk estimations, cooperation and learning experiences. The design was based on the theory of strategic niche management. A qualitative analysis of the data was performed to refine the main variables and identify connections.

The results show that differences in these variables can partly explain the variations in the embedding of e‐voting in the two countries, from a qualitative point of view. Key differences include the goals of introducing e‐voting, concerns in relation to verifiability and authenticity, the role of the Electoral Commissions and a focus on learning versus a focus on phased introduction.

The current study was limited to two countries. More empirical data can reveal other relevant subvariables, and contribute to a framework that can improve our understanding of the challenges of electronic voting.

This study shows the context‐dependent character of discussions on information security. It can be informative for actors involved in e‐voting in the UK and The Netherlands, and other countries using or considering electronic 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.

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.

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.