Accessibility and e-Democracy

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humanITy Briefing Paper 9

Date: 18/06/2003

1. Background

1.1 As the Internet becomes more widely used by citizens, the public sector (The European Union, central and local UK Government) is using it to make contact with citizens. Two major areas not dealt with in this Briefing Paper are:

  • Data accreditation (Briefing Paper 10); and
  • Making e-Government services more user friendly (Briefing Paper 11).

1.2 The main point of interest in the e-democracy debate is e-voting but this should be considered alongside the use of the Internet for public consultations.

1.3 This Briefing Paper will deal with:

  • Consultative Processes (Section 2)
  • Lobbying (Section 3)
  • Complaints and Mass expression (Section 4)
  • Voting (Section 5)
  • Trusted Intermediaries (Section 6).

2. Consultative Processes

2.1 As the use of the Internet for public consultation increases, consultation periods decrease. Frequently, consultation periods are shorter than the interval between meetings of decision-making bodies in civil society such as major Registered Charities representing, for example, disabled people. For more than a century the UK has built a formidable structure of citizen and consumer consultation based on civil society and this is now being swept away; charity trustees/directors increasingly have to put their trust in paid officers who have to react to consultations often without consulting their own members.

2.2 The use of ICT as an integral part of the consultative process, together with the erosion of civil society just mentioned, means that consultations are even more biased towards the rich, the powerful and the articulate. Such people may be representing the needs of the disadvantaged, for example, as best they can; but marginal people are being further marginalized as the speed of the transaction and the use of the technology further damage the meagre representation of their direct views.

2.3 The medium (ICT) should not be allowed to distort the democratic process; just because ICT allows for speed, that speed should not necessarily be utilised. The consultation period should reflect the ICT capacity of those directly affected by the issue; thus, consultation on banking regulation where all major stakeholders have ICT resources may be shorter than consultation on benefits payments methods where the vast majority of those affected do not have ICT.

3. Lobbying

3.1 A similar concern to that in Section 2. above on consultation must be expressed about the ability of different sectors of society to lobby through such ICT methods as mass mailing (spamming).

3.2 Many legislators and other senior decision makers have anti 'spam' controls on their systems. These filter out multiple messages from the same source and multiple messages bearing identical content from different sources.

3.3 Typically, a small lobby group will address legislators and others through appending signatures to a standard letter (because they do not have the expertise or resources to compose individual letters). Such minor lobbying will be filtered out by current devices. Major organisations, on the other hand, will be able to use generators of message just different enough to evade filters. Thus, to use an example, in any e-lobbying competition between employers and disabled people on employment rights, the employers will have a built-in advantage in lobbying to add to their advantage on the consultation process.

3.4 Finding a solution to such a disparity in lobbying resources is technically difficult but those being lobbied should be aware of it as an important factor in their in-bound messages.

4. Complaints and Mass Expression

4.1 We will soon reach the point where 'straw polling' by the use of television remote controllers and digital radio will be widespread. This may, for example, ask people to say "Yes" or "No" to the question of whether a local council's refuse service is working properly in a small area of a town. The result even in this local context might distort the political process of action based on manifesto commitment. On a larger scale, a straw poll on breakfast radio and television on whether a Government Minister accused by a hostile tabloid newspaper should resign might force the event even before the Minister is aware of the accusation.

4.2 In September 2000, relatively minor and indifferently organised protest managed to overturn a bipartisan policy on fuel taxation. Given the convergence of telephone and broadcasting receiver technologies, mass 'straw polling' will be a serious threat to political bodies acting on the basis of election manifesto commitments.

4.3 Political institutions need to alter their procedures in order to balance media generated mass complaints with commitments made democratically to electors.

5. Voting

5.1 The use of computer-generated ICT voting systems is a temporary phenomenon which ought not to be viewed disproportionately. The next generation of PDA with a user portable SIM card should be a proper identifier for transactions with Government and concerning Government. It may be that the UK Government's proposed Entitlement Card (with finger and iris print identifiers) should be combined with a unique PIN, with all three sets of code in a SIM. This will make near universal private voting much more simple.

5.2 In the meantime, any ICT based system using PC technology should be a supplement to, not a substitute for, other systems such as traditional booths and the use of telephones for voting. Authorities such as the Electoral Commission should also note the ownership of PC technology as a 'class' and income indicator and be aware of potential distortion. This is particularly important where richer and more powerful people can use the planning process to load unfavourable environmental factors into a part of a community where people are poor.

6. Trusted Intermediaries

6.1 As part of the debate on electronic signatures the Government should consider the establishment of a Register of Trusted Intermediaries, individuals and organisations empowered to represent individuals and organisations. The Membership of an organisation might wish to endorse it as a Trusted Intermediary and it, in turn, through its Trustees, might register an individual as Trusted Intermediary for a particular consultation. As with the system for conventional voting where some Returning Officers allow escorts to vote for disabled people at their direction, individuals may wish to nominate a Trusted Intermediary for their electronic transactions.

7. Resources

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