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The National Election Committee (NEC) has announced plans to introduce electronic voting from the 2008 elections. Under the system, voters can pick a candidate on the monitor, using an electronic ballot machine at a polling booth anywhere in the country.
A formula for online voting from PCs, cell phones and PDAs without going to the polls will be available first for the disabled and overseas Koreans in the same year and for all voters beginning in 2012.
Though the paper ballot will remain in parallel use for a while, the proposed electronic balloting is expected to bring about revolutionary changes to the election culture. The NEC asserts it would boost voter participation and more than halve administration costs by eliminating cumbersome procedures like opening ballots and counting by hand.
But that projected ˇ°revolutionˇ± is unlikely to be as trouble-free as the NEC is making out. Recall the birth pangs of electronic balloting in the National Assembly, multiply it by millions, and it becomes clear that this is not going to be a simple matter. To begin with, problems may arise in the course of balloting and ballot opening, and controversy over technicalities is bound to follow.
But more importantly, electronic voting - and online voting in particular ? runs counter to the principle of the secret poll. How voters have voted will remain on record. Even if this is accepted, studies are needed to determine who will administer the records.
A switch from the paper ballot to online voting goes beyond a simple change in tools. Should the online ballot be introduced overall, it would create conditions where administrative issues can easily be referred to a referendum or a poll similar to a referendum, and voters will be clamoring for such referendums or polls. That would bring an elemental change from the representative democracy on which our system is based to a direct democracy.
Representative democracy in some sense merely reflects the technical limits that make direct democracy unfeasible; but beyond that it is rooted in political philosophy and is an attempt to reduce the dangers inherent in direct democracy.
We also have look hard at the fact that the basic weakness of our politics stems not from a deficit in direct democracy but from confusion over representation. It is not for lack of technology that advanced democracies are still experimenting with partial electronic ballots.
The universal introduction of electronic voting is not a matter for the NEC to determine simply from the perspective of greater technical convenience. It requires careful study, well in advance of introduction, and a mature debate about the meaning and effects of electronic voting and e-democracy in political and academic circles.
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