In this paper, we investigate ethical issues involved in the development and implementation ofInternet voting technology. From a phenomenological perspective, we describe how voting via theInternet mediates the relation between people and democracy. In this relation, trust plays a majorrole. The dynamics of trust in the relation between people and their world forms the basis for ouranalysis of the ethical issues involved. First, we consider established principles of voting,confirming the identity of our democracy, which function as expectations in current experimentswith online voting in the Netherlands. We investigate whether and how Internet voting can meetthese expectations and thereby earn trust, based on the experiments in the Netherlands. We identifymajor challenges, and provide a basis for ethical and political discussion on these issues, especiallythe changed relation between public and private. If we decide that we want to vote via the Internet,more practical matters come into play in the implementation of the technology. The choicesinvolved here are discussed in relation to the mediating role of concrete voting technologies in therelation between citizen and state.
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