Research Paper on:
E-Voting and the Democratic Process

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
2000 presidential election debacle. What is a chad? It is the small circle that once covered a punch hole in a punch card. Why is it important? In Florida, during  the 2000 election, in order to determine voter intent, a committee had to look at these punch cards and decide which hole the voter intended to punch. What if someone  accidentally punched two holes? What if the chad is only partially revealed? To differentiate, terms like "pregnant chad" became relevant, and what all this means is that protocol, in addition  to technology, plays role in the voting process. Clearly, high technology was not used in Florida when the punch card voting became an issue. With an election so close, every  vote really counted. And not only could technology resolve the problem of the weary volunteers who so wanted to help in counting the votes, but it would also could encourage  more people to vote. Voter turnout is dismal in many places and a primary complaint is that people simply do not have time to vote. The concept of e-voting has  come to the forefront, but there are certainly concerns. That hackers could break into a system and determine who the next president is, is rather frightening. Yet, e-voting has received  much acclaim throughout the world. French MP Andr? Santini claims that E-democracy will change politics and will help in curing peoples disaffection with politics, just like the Internet economy  is beating unemployment (Lefort, 2000). The impact of the Internet and its potential implications for the future of democracy is significant. This is true in many ways as machinery has  created more questions than answers, and recounts have been demanded as a result. Also, e-voting is something that would be a drastic step in any democratic society.