ERNESTO BETTINELLI

Il "sistema E-Poll" nello spazio elettorale europeo: dalla prospettiva al progetto

N. 202

Summary - The experimentations of the electronic vote (project E-Poll) that took place in Italy and France in 2001 and 2002 in the midst of general elections and consultations, have demonstrated the great potential in the new computer science technologies. It was possible to verify not only a notable semplification of procedures and operation capable of diminishing greatly the total costs of the electoral competition, but also a streigthening of the guarantees expressed by the international declarations, from the Treaty and from the Charter of Rights of the European Union. The E-Poll system is extremely flexible and effective, easily adaptable also to the European Parliament elections. It would be sufficient that the European institutions would bring forward the harmonization process between the different state legislations, actived by the Parliament since 1998 and would include the new network technologies among the "common principles". The electronic vote is an element - certainly the most important - of the e-democray, that constitues a strategic objective of the European Union with the goal of constructing a political system and an effectively European public opinion and a constant relationships between the supranational European organizations and the citizens. Just recently, for this purpose, institutional initiatives promoted by the Commission and by the President of the Council of the European Union, like the thematic consultations have been developed. Favorable conditions certainly exist because this perspective can come about; it's enough to think of the e-government as usual procedure of "interactive" administration and the progressive increasing attention and investments (even in Italy) for a mass computer science (beginning at elementary school) and for the reduction of the digital divide.