m-Voting Aimed at Increasing Democratic Standards in Modern Information Age
Miroslav Katić, Branimir Đukić · 2005
Over the past fifteen years Croatia has been going through processes of transition, one of which is democratization. This has created the need for development of civil society. Although Croatia has held several democratic elections in this time, the principles of civil society have not fully taken hold. Political elites follow one another at all levels of government, and none of them communicate with the electorate nor show much interest in the voters' opinions. Furthermore, there are in effect no facilities for continuous monitoring of voters' attitudes. As part of information-communication technologies, mobile communications can enable elected representatives at all levels - from the lowest local self-government bodies to the highest administrative and executive positions - to continuously monitor voters' attitudes and opinions. Mobile technology is wide-spread in Croatia and statistics show that the majority of population owns a mobile (cell) phone. This provides solutions for some other pragmatic problems related to the voting procedure. Due to organizational problems, if people are, for whatever reasons, outside their electoral precinct at the time of election, they cannot realize their voting rights. Thus mobile phones could be used not only for something similar to a referendum, a way to find out about the attitudes of voters, but also in the election process itself, i.e. in direct voting.