Who are the Internet Voters? Review Article

Uwe Serdült
Fernando Mendez
Maja Harris
Alicia Portenier
In Electronic Government and Electronic Participation, eds. Efthimios Tambouris and others. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 27–41.
Assessing the influence that socio‐economic characteristics have on the division between traditional voters and those who choose to vote via the internet is crucial to political debate as well as for the future development of democracies. Does the introduction of internet voting technology simply widen the divide between voters and non‐voters, further isolating the part of the electorate already underrepresented in the political process? We address these issues by reviewing the current state of research in 22 empirical studies relating internet voting to socio‐economic variables. The results are not homogeneous but suggest that although socio‐economic factors do play an important role in explaining the choice of voting channel, they are strongly moderated by the general use of and trust in the internet.
Serdült, Uwe, Micha Germann, Fernando Mendez, Maja Harris, and Alicia Portenier. 2015. “Who Are the Internet Voters? Review Article.” In Electronic Government and Electronic Participation, eds. Efthimios Tambouris and others. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 27–41.
@incollection{internet-voters,
   author = {Serd{\"u}lt, Uwe and Germann, Micha and Mendez, Fernando and Harris, Maja and Portenier, Alicia},
   title = {{Who are the Internet Voters? Review Article}},
   pages = {27--41},
   publisher = {IOS Press},
   editor = {Tambouris, Efthimios and others},
   booktitle = {{Electronic Government and Electronic Participation}},
   year = {2015},
   address = {Amsterdam},
   abstract = {Assessing the influence that socio-economic characteristics have on the division between traditional voters and those who choose to vote via the internet is crucial to political debate as well as for the future development of democracies. Does the introduction of internet voting technology simply widen the divide between voters and non-voters, further isolating the part of the electorate already underrepresented in the political process? We address these issues by reviewing the current state of research in 22 empirical studies relating internet voting to socio-economic variables. The results are not homogeneous but suggest that although socio-economic factors do play an important role in explaining the choice of voting channel, they are strongly moderated by the general use of and trust in the internet.},
   status = {personal}
}