Legal Aspects of Electronic Democracy and Electronic Vote

Abstract

This article examines theoretical and related practical aspects of e-democracy and e-voting. E-democracy - a concept well-known in general, but because of its multidimensional nature, generally insufficiently studied. Council of Europe recommendation in 2009 defined the basic legal parameters of e-democracy, including raising the people’s participation in democratic processes, transparency and public accountability, remote communication and electronic workflow. Development of various practices and tools of e-democracy acquires global practice increasing scale. In the Russian legal science topic has been neglected. E-democracy in foreign practice gradually expanding into issues not only the state, but also public authorities. This clearly confirms the author’s classificatio n practices, tool s an d e-democracy projects. Among them, the author highlights the various projects, including still not generally known in the national democratic practice. Many authors refer to the e-democracy purely political sphere, namely to the definition of best practices and methods of democratic governance. Meanwhile e-democracy, according to the author, has pronounced legal origins. This article comprehensively and systematically investigated the legal essence of e-democracy with involving foreign sources not previously translated and used in the national legal science. In conclusion, the author for the first time in the national legal science developed the legal concept of e-democracy, based on a series of principles that form the basis concept of «e-government». The article describes the conceptual apparatus, peculiarities of legal regulation, given the legal assessment of the possibilities of e-voting system in the system of e-democracy. The author articulates the range of fundamental ideas underlying the concept of e-democracy and defining the foundations of legal regulation in this area.