Internet Voting in Sweden
I
will argue that Internet voting in national elections is not very likely
to help reduce the democratic deficit in Sweden. It will not make current
national elections more legitimate or even raise voter turn out. There
is one main reason for this arguably bleak prognosis. Unlike the US Sweden
is a ‘pure’ representative democracy. In other words, elections
are few and far between, and there are no procedures involving elements
of more direct democracy. In fact, Sweden, along with Norway, the UK and
the Czech Republic is the group of countries in Europe that has the least
amount of direct democracy (Olsson, 2001)
In
practice this translates to the following electoral procedures in Sweden:
elections are held every four years. Citizens vote for a specific party.
They cast three ballots, corresponding to the national, regional and municipal
level of government. It is true that the option of referenda exists, but
it is not binding and only serves has an advisory function. Therefore,
if Internet voting were to be introduced in these elections very little
would change. It would not make Swedes more directly involved in the political
decision making process. However, it should be noted that not everyone
believes that more direct participation is necessarily a good thing. Are
people qualified to make informed choices in important questions? And do
they have the time it takes to get informed?
For
those who believe that more direct democracy is the solution, it will take
more than Internet voting to address this issue in Sweden. It will be necessary
to first discuss the democratic processes in Sweden and why they are no
longer adequate. (Olsson, 2001)
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