Delivering Democracy: The History and Deployment of Electronic Voting Machines in India and the United States
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Date
2021-11-23
Authors
Jones, Patrick
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
My dissertation explores how the introduction of electronic voting technologies (EVTs) has reshaped electoral democracy in India and the United States. Through archival research, patent analysis, interviews, and discourse analysis, I examine how EVT’s technical features, public policy debates, and media discourse configure controversies around the use of electoral technologies and how those controversies both reify and challenge existing democratic norms. I argue that EVTs are a digital interface between the voting public and the government. As such, they transform one’s vote from a discrete act of civic participation into a source of political information that communicates much more than electoral preferences. As information, our votes are integrated into data-driven campaign strategies, disinformation and misinformation projects, and media debates about electoral integrity and democratic culture. In the contemporary political moment, the project has important implications for policymakers, activists, and an interdisciplinary and global set of scholars concerned with voter suppression, the security of elections, and democratic legitimacy. The project also has much to offer political communications scholars concerned with the relationships among technology, citizenship, and civic engagement.
Chapter 1 elaborates how the Election Commission of India has used electronic voting machines and other electoral technologies to create a relationship with the voter that is not structured by partisan affiliation. Chapter 2 uses EVMs to explore the relationship between electoral administration, electoral controversy, and voter perception. In Chapter 3, I provide a genealogical analysis of contemporary debates about the use of voting technologies by tracking how the secret ballot and mechanical lever voting machines reorganized the act of voting in the United States in the late 19th century. The fourth and final chapter analyzes the discourse on electoral reform after the 2000 US presidential election and argues that this literature created, consolidated, and institutionalized a science of election administration for the first time in US history. I then examine how this literature configures the voter as a user of voting technology and customer for electoral services.
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Keywords
Elections, Political communication, Secret ballot, Voting, Voting technology