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So We Finally Get the Electronic Vote... What Next?
 Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari - PVNN
February 25, 2010
Most articles that have been published in electronic voting and related subjects, describe how the electronic vote operates, the methodology that will be used, the electoral software, the physical tools and the way in which it will be presented to the media etc. etc. To this date there does not seem to be a question on what follows after or together with the electronic vote. We had the country go through the problematic of having an electronic tool its legislation and we do not seem to have a plan to use this new methodology. Just elections. Too much of an expense for such a limited result. Don't you think?
As an illustration consider the banking system and the evolution that came after the possibility of doing monetary transactions through telephone and then through the net. We have to start planning how this democratic tool will modify the way in which the countries are actually run. New applications, new sites and how the people will have to start using it. The first results (which really started with internet) were a beginning of closeness between the population and their representatives. Consequently, to this date, there is no Congressman that does not have at least one email or website receiving petitions and comments from the people s/he represents. For what appears in the news (despite Spams and attacks) Congressmen and / or their staff consult their "web environment altogether" as a part of everyday's job routine.
This is not new. The question in this article is what will be the requirements from the population after a fully operating electronic vote: the stage "after" internet. When you have contacts available at the speed of internet, people will not wait. As time goes on, people want more and more immediate responses. This is still internet type of interaction. Just realize that in today's business practice, email has replaced normal mail and even in certain circumstances the telephone. There is no newspaper which does not have an electronic version and website. Interactions become almost immediate.
My forecast is that "Citizen Networking" will come right after the electronic vote will be in full operation. Citizen networking is at its beginnings but the ingredient after internet voting will be that the citizens will only then realize that the decision power is in the citizen networking and certainly will contact their congressmen to work with him or her. I want to believe that with this electronic tool, the concept of democracy will start to be modified. It will pass from "a" Congressman to groups of people headed by the Congressman: It will be called citizen networking in a completely new involvement of the people taking their future in their own hands.
Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari is a former electoral officer of the United Nations Organization. Contact him at gui.voting(at)gmail.com
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