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203

The Impacts of the Digital Divide on Citizens Intentions to Use Internet

Voting

France Blanger

Lemuria Carter

Accounting and Information Systems

Virginia Tech
3007 Pamplin Hall
Blacksburg, USA
[email protected]

School of Business and Economics

North Carolina A & T State University
1601 East Market Street
Greensboro, North Carolina 27411, USA
[email protected]

Abstract Internet voting is increasingly used by governments

and corporations as a means for individuals to cast their
votes. However, not everyone has access to and is comfortable
with the use of technology. This digital divide is composed of
the access divide and the skills divide. This study explores the
impact of the digital divide on Internet voting (I-voting). We
propose a model of the effects of the digital divide on I-voting,
which suggests that age, income, education and frequency of
Internet use have an impact on I-voting utilization. Online
and paper-based surveys were administered to a large sample
of citizens of varied backgrounds to test the model. The
results of multiple linear regressions indicate that age,
income, and Internet use (representing the access and skills
divide) have a significant impact on Internet voting.
Education was not found to be significant. These findings
indicate that, like other e-government services, I-voting is
subject to the barriers associated with the digital divide, and
this digital divide introduces several challenges to government
agencies.

the ages of 18-25 since they have experience in surfing the

Internet and like the idea of using the latest technology [6].
Morris [7] agrees that the Internet has the potential to
mobilize the otherwise disenfranchised voters under the
age of thirty-five.
I-voting would be an ideal option for many citizens.
Done [4] argues that one of the most important social
impacts of Internet voting is the effect it could have on
voter participation. A survey conducted at the University
of Arizona suggests that 62 percent of the unregistered
voting age population would register to vote on the
Internet. The survey results also suggest that Internet
voting would increase voter participation by about 42
percent while conserving costly resources. These increases
would be realized across all sex, age, ethnicity, and
education groups [4].
Many countries have conducted research on or
experimented with Internet voting [8]. In the Netherlands,
62% of the people with access to the Internet would prefer
to vote online [9]. In New Zealand, a taskforce concluded
that Internet technology might boost the number of voters,
speed the count, and reduce costs. In Japan, the Center for
Political Public Relations experimented with poll site
Internet voting in the 2001 gubernatorial election in
Hiroshima. In 2005, Estonia was the first country to offer
Internet-voting as an option nationwide for mayors and city
councilors [10].
In the United States, the 2000 Arizona Democratic
primary offered the first binding Internet election for
public office [4, 11, 12]. In 2008, Okaloosa County in
Florida allowed hundreds of military personnel in
Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom to cast their
votes in the presidential election [13]. Despite the gradual
implementation of I-voting and its potential to increase
participation, some citizens may not benefit from this
innovation due to the digital divide.
The paper explores the relationship between the digital
divide and I-voting. Whereas one can argue that I-voting
offers simply another electronic service, voting is a
fundamental right in democratic societies, available to all

Keywords: Internet voting, digital divide, technology

adoption, e-services, access divide, skills divide

I.

INTRODUCTION

This paper explores the impact of the digital divide on

Internet voting [1]. Voting is an important democratic
right, and voter turnout is vital to the health of all
democracies. A key element of a democracy is the
continuing responsiveness of the government to the
preferences of its citizens. Turnout rates in U.S.
presidential elections (which are the most popular in that
country) vary between 50 and 60 percent, with winners
never receiving more than 60 percent of the turnout.
Hence, presidents are selected by the votes of 25 to 30
percent of the electorate [2]. In fact, the United States
ranks at the bottom, or just above last place, in voter
involvement when compared to other democratic nations
[3]. Research suggests Internet voting could increase voter
participation [4]. Internet voting, or I-voting, is defined as
an election system that uses encryption to allow a voter to
transmit his or her secure and secret ballot over the Internet
[5, p. 2]. Researchers suggest that I-voting has the
potential to increase turnout among individuals between

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204
citizens, irrespective of their income, education or social
status (within legal limits).
The paper is organized as follows. First, we discuss the
issues of the digital divide to provide background for the
development of the research model and the hypotheses.
The methodology section describes the research conducted.
The next section presents the results and their implications
for research and practice.
II.

THE ISSUE OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

As governments worldwide begin to implement more

technology-based voting systems, in particular Internet
voting, concerns about the potential impacts of the digital
divide continue to grow. The digital divide refers to the
distinction between the information haves and have-nots;
the gap between the computer literate and the computer
illiterate. Researchers have been interested in the digital
divide from a variety of perspectives, including a
demographic view [14-16], a global view divide [17], an
urban view [18, 19], and a psychosocial view of the digital
divide [20].
The digital divide is composed of two major barriers:
access to technology and comfort with technology [21].
Both of these barriers may play a role in limiting the use
and convenience of Internet voting. Not surprisingly,
researchers have found that demographically, citizens who
use the Internet for political purposes differ from the rest of
the population, particularly in terms of income and
education [22]. It could be because education and income
increase the likelihood of openness toward Internet voting
[4]; it could also be due to the digital divide barriers of
access and skills. We discuss each of these digital divide
barriers before presenting the research model in the
remainder of this section.
A. The Access Divide
The access divide refers to factors that may limit an
individuals access to technology that can be used, in this
case for Internet voting. Prior research has identified
ethnicity, income, age and education as significant
predictors of access to technology [23, 24]. A more recent
study finds that income, education and age significantly
impact who is willing to use e-government services such as
electronic tax filing or license renewals [21]. This is not
surprising since other researchers have found that
approximately 78 percent of households with income
between $50,000 and $75,000 had Internet access
compared to only 40 percent of those with household
incomes between $20,000 and $25,000. Others find that
young citizens (18-24) and their parents (45-54) report the
highest levels of home Internet access, reaching better than
61 percent[25]. Research also shows that more younger
Americans have an Internet connection than older
Americans [6]. Thomas and Streib [24] suggest that
among Internet users, ethnicity and education are important
predictors of government Web sites utilization, with white

and better educated users more likely to be uses such sites

[24]. Interestingly, gender differences in access and use of
computers has narrowed over the years, with recent
research suggesting that it does not impact use of egovernment services [21]. This is consistent with findings
from the Pew Internet Project report, which suggests that
although men and women have different attitudes toward
technology, the surge in the number of women online has
eliminated some of the disparity in access between genders
[26].
B. The Skills Divide
In addition to Internet access, comfort with Internet
technology is also a major element of the digital divide.
The skills divide refers to a disparity in skills necessary to
effectively interact with online systems [23]. Other
researchers call this the second order digital divide [27].
Mossenburg, Tolbert, and Stansbury [23] identify two
components of this skill divide: technical competence and
information literacy [23]. Technical competencies are the
skills needed to operate hardware and software, such as
typing, using a mouse, and giving instructions to the
computer to sort records a certain way. Information
literacy is the ability to recognize when information can
solve a problem or fill a need and to effectively employ
information resources. Researchers have found that the
old, less-educated, poor and minority individuals (African
Americans and Latinos) were more likely to need computer
assistance (such as help using the mouse and keyboard,
using e-mail, or using word processing and spreadsheet
programs), although recent studies show some of the
differences disappearing after a year or two of use [28]. It
is also possible that as new user interfaces such as multitouch screens and touch screens become more popular,
skills require to use the computers will become less of an
issue. Nevertheless, comprehension of the navigation,
applications, and resulting information will still be required
for completing digital tasks.
In this study, we use frequency of Internet use in
general as a proxy measure of technical competence and
information literacy. The use of this proxy is consistent
with Belanger and Carter [29]. Citizens who use the
Internet frequently should possess a level of technical and
information literacy.
C. The Research Model
In summary, differentials in age, income, education,
and Internet usage, seem to create a digital divide that
should affect which individuals will choose to use Internet
voting as a means of performing their constitutional right.
Figure 1 summarizes the access and skills divide factors
that are expected to affect ones intention to use I-voting.

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205
technologies). They also tend to have more education, and
potentially computer skills. As a result, it is expected that
income is positively related to I-voting intentions.
H4: Experience using the Internet will have a positive
impact on intention to use Internet Voting.
Because individuals who have used the Internet for a
longer period of time are expected to be familiar with the
terminology, tools, and features of the Internet, it is
expected that their skills will easily translate to the use of
the Internet for voting. As a result, we expect that Internet
experience is positively related to I-voting intentions. We
discuss in the next section the methodology used to test the
research model and hypotheses.
Figure 1. I-Voting Digital Divide Factors

As depicted in the model, there are four hypothesized

relationships:
H1: Age will have a negative impact on intention to use
Internet Voting.
As discussed before, a larger number of younger adults
tend to have Internet access than older citizens. Since
Internet access is a condition for I-voting, it can therefore
be expected that there is negative relationship between age
and I-voting intentions. Furthermore, since younger adults
also tend to have more computer skills than older adults
do, it further reinforces the negative relationship between
age and I-voting intentions.
H2: Education will have a positive impact on intention
to use Internet Voting.
Education is closely linked in two ways to the
relationship between the digital divide and I-voting
intentions. First, individuals with higher education tend to
have more computer and Internet skills, as previously
discussed. As a result, it is expected that education has a
positive relationship with I-voting intentions. Of note,
education can also impact I-voting intentions through the
higher income that highly educated individuals tend to
have. For the sake of parsimony and simplicity, our model
does not test the potential mediating effect of income
between education and I-voting intentions. Nevertheless,
this potential relationship would also involve a positive
link between education and I-voting intentions.
H3: Income will have a positive impact on intention to
use Internet Voting.
As prior research suggests, individuals with higher
income tend to have more access to the Internet (and other

III.

METHODOLOGY

A. Overview
To identify the salient I-voting divide factors, we
surveyed a diverse pool of citizens. Both online and paperbased versions of the resulting instrument were
administered to participants. There were various sources
of data collection for each version. The paper version of
the survey was administered to members of a church choir,
students in a religious seminary class, attendees of a
symphony concert, and employees in a county agency.
The online version was posted on a local website,
disseminated through a graduate student listserv at a
university, and sent to the listserv of a community fitness
group. 372 surveys were used for data analysis: 133 paper
responses and 239 online responses.
An independent samples t-test was used to identify any
differences between online and paper responses. Since the
two groups did not exhibit differences for the dependent
variable - intention to use an I-voting system - a combined
sample was used in the data analyses.
B. Instrument Items
Each I-voting divide factor was measured using
categorical data on the survey instrument, except for age,
which was measured by respondent writing their actual
age. Five age categories were then used to classify the
data: 18-24 years, 25-29 years, 30-44 years, 45-54 years,
and 55 years and older. Education was measured using four
categories (Grade school/some high school, High-school
Diploma (or equivalence), Some college: no degree, and
College degree/post graduate). Income was measured using
seven categories (Less than US$20,000, US$20,000 US$34,999, US$35,000 US$49,999, US$50,000 US$74,999, US$75,000 - US$99,999, US$100,000 US$149,999, and US$150,000 and above). Internet usage
was measured using four categories representing the
number of years a citizen has been using the Internet (0-3
years; 3-6 years; 6-9 years; 10 years or more). Finally
intentions to use I-voting (USE) was measured using four
items adapted from a study of e-government [29], which

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206
used a seven-point Likert-type scale (from strongly
disagree to strongly agree).
C. Sample Demographics
Regarding sample demographics, the age range of
participants is 18 to 75 years with an average of 33 years
(see Table 1). Most participants (78%) have a college
degree, and the reported income range is well distributed.
Forty-four (44) percent of the sample makes US$50,000 or
more a year.
TABLE 1. AGE DISTRIBUTION
Age Category
18-24 years
25-29 years
30-44 years
45-54 years
55 years and older

Frequency
92
71
104
57
48

Percent
24.7
19.1
28.0
15.3
12.9

Cumulative %
24.7
43.8
71.8
87.1
100

In addition to the demographics mentioned above,

general information about the participants was collected.
The sample was 63% female. A majority of the subjects
were Caucasian (64%). African-Americans accounted for
26% of the sample and Hispanic, Asian and Native
Americans accounted for seven percent of the sample. The
remaining three percent of the subjects did not report
ethnicity. In terms of access to and experience with the
Internet, most participants reported high levels, with the
exception of having used e-government services, where
only 70% of respondents indicated having done so, as can
be seen in Table 2.

The regression analysis results in a model with an Fvalue of 9.344, resulting in a p-value of p< 0.0001, which
indicates that at least one of the coefficients corresponding
to an independent variable is not equal to zero. The rsquare value was 9.5 %, indicating that digital divide
factors identified in this research account for nine and a
half percent of the variance in intentions to use I-voting.
This is important because this is the variance explained on
top of what typical adoption factors from theories such as
the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) or the Unified
Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)
should account for.
B. Hypothesis Testing
Since the model is significant, the individual beta
coefficient t-tests can be used to identify which digital
divide factors are significant. Table 3 shows the results of
the hypothesis testing analyses.
TABLE 3. HYPOTHESIS TESTING RESULTS
Hypothesis
H1: Age I-voting Intentions
H2: Education I-voting
Intentions
H3: Income I-voting Intentions
H4: Internet Usage I-voting
Intentions

Beta
-0.271
0.056

P-value
< 0.0001
0.301

0.211
0.142

<0.001
0.008

Support?
Yes
No
Yes
Yes

Results from Table 3 indicate that age, income, and

Internet usage are significant predictors of I-voting
intentions. Figure 2 shows the significant results, which are
further describes and discussed in the next section.

TABLE 2. INTERNET AND WEB EXPERIENCE. PERCENTAGE OF

RESPONDENTS WHO
have access to the Web at home
used the Web to make a purchase
had used the Web to complete a government
transaction.
voted in the 2004 presidential election

IV.

91%
90%
70%
82%

RESULTS

Multiple regression analysis was used for hypothesis

testing. Prior to testing the hypotheses, assumptions of
multivariate normal distribution, independence of errors,
and equality of variance were tested. The USE variable
was slightly skewed with a mean of 4.78. Pearson
correlation coefficients revealed low correlations among
variables, except for age and income with a correlation of
0.48. Variance inflation factors (VIF) confirmed that
multicollinearity was not a concern with this data set (VIF
range from 1.11 to 1.29). Outlier influential observations
were identified with leverage and studentized residuals.
This analysis indicated that thirteen data points were
considered outliers. They were removed for data analysis.
There were no violations of the other assumptions.
A. Model Testing

Figure 2. I-Voting Significant Factors

V.

DISCUSSION

This study explored how the digital divide impacts

citizens intentions to use Internet voting. The overall
result of the study is that there is indeed an impact of the
digital divide. More specifically, the levels of income, the
age of citizens, and their level of Internet use impact their
intentions to use I-voting.

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Before we discuss the results and their implications in
this section, we need to acknowledge some limitations to
the study. One of the primary limitations was the samples
lack of variance in education. The participants in this
study are highly educated. Seventy-eight percent have a
college degree. Future studies should test a sample with
more variance in education. Lyons and Alexander [30]
found that education beyond high-school increases the
likelihood of voting by almost 15%. Alvarez and Hall [6]
found that individuals who have attended college are
approximately two times more likely to vote than
individuals without a high school education. These
findings illustrate the importance of obtaining responses
from people with diverse educational backgrounds. The
demographic characteristics of this sample may account for
education not having a significant impact in this study.
Future studies should seek to collect data from individuals
with diverse educational backgrounds; an ideal sample
could include those who have a high school diploma and
those who do not.
An additional limitation of the sample is the lack of
variance in ethnicity with only a few Asian, native
American, or Hispanic respondents. As such, the sample is
not truly representative of the American population in
general. However, to avoid any potential lack of
representativeness issues, we did not include or test
ethnicity as a digital divide factor.
A. Significant Results: Age, Income, and Internet Use
The results of the regression analysis indicate that age,
income, and Internet usage are significant elements of the
I-voting divide. Younger citizens, individuals with higher
income levels, and individuals with more experience using
the Internet are more likely to use Internet voting. These
findings indicate that, like other e-government services, Ivoting is also subject to the barriers associated with the
digital divide. In other words, both the access divide
(impacted by income and age) and the skills divide
(impacted by age and Internet usage) affect I-voting
intentions.
As hypothesized, age has a negative relationship with Ivoting intentions. In general, this means that younger
individuals are more likely to vote using the Internet.
There are several potential reasons for this. First, they may
have more readily access to the Internet via school, their
parents computers and networks, or even friends
networks. Older citizens are not only less likely to have
access to the Internet, but also less likely to posses the
computer skills necessary to take advantage of Internet
voting. In a post hoc analysis, we show the means of Ivoting intentions across age categories in Table 4. To
eliminate potential bias, we only used observations from
registered voters for this analysis. As can be seen from the
table, there is a steady decline in I-voting intentions means
as age increases.

TABLE 4. I-VOTING INTENTIONS BY AGE FOR REGISTERED

VOTERS
Age Category
18-24 years
25-29 years
30-44 years
45-54 years
55 years and older

I-voting
means

I-voting St.
Dev.

80
55
98
57
47
325

5.22
5.16
5.11
4.38
4.29
4.90

1.65
1.78
1.68
1.96
2.20
1.85

Since one of the arguments often heard is that I-voting

could increase voter participation among younger adults,
we identified registered voters who voted on the 2004
United States Presidential election by age category in
Table 5.
TABLE 5. LAST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION VOTING BEHAVIOR
BY AGE FOR REGISTERED VOTERS
Age Category
18-24 years
25-29 years
30-44 years
45-54 years
55 years and older

Voted

80
52
91
56
46
325

65
48
88
55
45
299

Did not
vote
15
4
3
3
1
26

% Did
not vote
18.8 %
7.7 %
3.3%
5.4%
0.1%
8.0%

As can be seen, the results are extremely revealing in

that the younger adults are by far less likely to have voted
in the last election. Even taking out a portion of the
respondents who were not old enough to vote in the last
election, there remains a large portion of these younger
adults who did not vote. Yet, these same younger adults
state they would use the Internet to vote. It is possible,
therefore, that I-voting would indeed increase voter
participation among younger adults.
Income is positively related to intentions to use Ivoting. Citizens with higher income levels are more likely
to have access to the technology necessary to take
advantage of Internet voting. While the regression analysis
identifies a general relationship between these constructs, a
closer look at the distribution of I-voting use intentions per
income category, presented in Table 6, reveals a more
complex situation.
TABLE 6. I-VOTING INTENTIONS BY INCOME LEVELS
Income Category
Less than US$20,000
US$20,000 - US$34,999
US$35,000 US$49,999
US$50,000 - US$74,999
US$75,000 - US$99,999
US$100,000 - US$149,999
US$150,000 and above

I-voting
means

I-voting St.
Dev.

89
63
53
62
51
31
10
359

4.91
4.55
4.51
5.25
5.35
5.05
4.95
4.92

1.79
1.97
1.88
1.86
1.62
1.89
1.26
1.84

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208
As can be seen from the data in the table, it is true that
lower income individuals show fewer intentions to vote
using the Internet than higher income levels, except that
the relationship does not seem to be linearly constant
across categories of income. There are several possible
explanations. First, our income categories are probably too
granular, with the effects of the digital divide finding its
way into lower than US$ 50,000 versus higher than
US$50,000. There also appears to be a lower intention to
vote using the Internet when income levels are in the very
high (greater than US$150,000) category. It is possible that
there is a bell shape (curvilinear) relationship between
income and I-voting intentions. It is also possible that these
results are simply due to the unequal distribution of
responses in our sample. Future research should further
explore these possibilities.
Finally, experience using the Internet has a positive
impact on intentions to use I-voting. Regular use of the
Internet translates into an affinity towards Internet voting.
These findings support prior suggestions that I-voting will
be more appealing to citizens who use the Internet
regularly [31]. In the literature review, we discussed how
experience using the Internet is one factor that may reduce
the skills divide. However, since voting is such an
important civil act, we believe that prior e-government
usage might also be an important predictor of intentions to
use I-voting. This would be consistent with prior findings
in e-commerce where Schaupp and Carter [32] found that
prior use of an e-commerce or e-government service is
positively related to intention to use an I-voting system. To
verify this possibility, we ran a post hoc analysis on the
effects of e-government usage, of which two measures
were available in our dataset, on intentions to use I-voting.
One of these variables is whether individuals have used a
government website to collect information (EgovInfo), and
the other is whether an individual has used a government
website to conduct a transaction (EgovTrans). While the
EgovInfo variable proved to be non significant, the prior
use of a government website to conduct a transaction
(EgovTrans) was highly significant with a p value of
0.003. In this study, 70 percent of the sample has
completed a government transaction online and 90% has
purchased a product or service online. Participants in this
study have adopted e-service initiatives in both the public
and private sector. As suggested by the literature, citizens
who have adopted other e-services are more likely to adopt
I-voting.
Even with these results, it is possible that online voting
will introduce unique concerns, even among frequent
Internet users. Future studies should explore the impact of
concepts such as Internet trust and Internet self-efficacy on
I-voting acceptance. Future studies should also explore the
impact of technology adoption variables on intention to use
Internet voting. Perhaps, constructs such as compatibility
and social influence would have a significant impact on Ivoting intentions.

B. Factors Not Affecting I-voting Use Intentions

Interestingly, education did not have a significant
impact on ones intention to use an Internet voting system.
This finding could be a result of our sample, which did not
have a large variance in education. Seventy eight percent
of our survey respondents have a college degree. This
percentage is far greater than the population at large.
Future studies should continue to explore the effects of
education on the digital divide.
C. Implications for I-voting Diffusion
As municipalities begin to make I-voting a viable
option for civic participation it is imperative that whole
sectors of the population are not left behind. This digital
divide introduces several challenges to government
agencies: 1) the sectors in danger of exclusion are already
disenfranchised and 2) as long as there is a divide, the
government will need to maintain traditional voting
methods in addition to Internet options. Older, lower
income citizens will need an advocate to ensure that they
are not disregarded as I-voting initiatives become more
commonplace. The existence of this divide means that Ivoting should be used as an accompaniment to, not a
replacement of, existing voting procedures.
Government agencies need to discover ways to make
online services more appealing to older citizens. The
results of this study indicate that younger voters are more
inclined to use Internet voting than older citizens. Perhaps
government agencies could work with community and/or
non-profit organizations designed to help senior citizens,
such as the American Association for Retired Persons
(AARP) (www.aarp.org), to increase adoption among older
users. As senior citizens often become increasingly less
mobile, having an easy way to cast their vote could
improve the level of participation of this group of citizens
in the democratic process.
As I-voting becomes more popular, municipalities also
need to make I-voting options available to low-income
citizens that may not have Internet access at home. For
instance, the government may be able to make voting kiosk
available in public places such as libraries, supermarkets
and post offices to increase citizens access to this
innovation.
Can I-voting lead to more individuals actually voting?
It is unclear that I-voting alone can achieve this, but a post
hoc analysis of our data shows at least a potential for this
to happen. We compared the individuals who voted in the
2004 presidential elections with those who did not on their
intentions to use I-voting if this technology was available
to them. Surprisingly, non-voters (59 individuals) exhibited
a higher mean for I-voting intentions (5.31) than voters
(300 individuals; 4.85). An independent samples t-test
reveals that this difference is significant only at the 0.10
level (p = 0.06). While this not a highly significant test, it
does suggest that future research should explore more indepth the perspectives of non-voters. A potential avenue to

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209
do this would be through interviews of non-voters on the
topic.
Alternatively,
researchers
could
conduct
experimental studies where non-voters would be presented
with an Internet voting option.
D. Social Impact of Increased Voter Participation
The impact of I-voting on political participation cannot
be fully ascertained until Internet voting actually becomes
a common option for voting in major elections. Recent
studies suggest that its diffusion is steadily approaching.
Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
predict that kiosk I-voting will be available at post offices,
malls, and automated teller machines. By 2012, they
predict that some states, especially Oregon, which only
uses mail-in ballots, will be the first to adopt Internet
voting [33]. In light of the potential for Internet voting to
increase voter participation, it is important to consider the
potential impact of increased voter turnout on the nations
political system.
Given the current disparities in Internet access and
literacy, agencies should be aware of the potential
emergence of a democratic digital divide [23].
A
democratic digital divide occurs when advancements in
technology increase political inequality. This inequality
results from the unequal distribution of political power
among population groups. Future studies should explore
the existence and implications of a democratic digital
divide. Will certain groups reap the benefits of Internet
voting at the expense of others? As technology transforms
the voting process, will socio-economic status persist as a
discriminating factor, or will other factors such as political
motivation become more salient?
E. Personal Impact on the Act of Voting
In this study, participants were receptive to Internet
voting; the mean of intention to use was 4.79 on a seven
point scale (for all 359 valid responses), where seven
represents the highest level of acceptance for I-voting. In
light of this notable adoption potential, it is important to
consider the impact of Internet voting on the voting
experience.
Some opponents are critical of Internet voting because
it deviates from traditional voting methods. Critics of Ivoting argue that it will contaminate and eventually replace
the most fundamental form of citizen participation in the
democratic process. It may result in the loss of an
important civic ritual: citizens going to the polls. Coleman
[34] writes reducing a vote to a mere key stroke of a
personal computer may diminish, not heighten, the
significance of the act. At a minimum, voters who bother
to actually go to the polls tend to be people who are
motivated enough to learn about issues. The solution to a
lack of commitment of voters is not to reduce the necessary
commitment needed to vote (p. 2).
Some critics even argue that I-voting would make
elections less of a community event, which might create a

gap between citizens and government, thereby decreasing

participation. In light of the diverse predictions regarding
the impact of Internet voting on the democratic process it
will be interesting to explore is actual implications as this
innovation is diffused throughout society.
F. Personal Impact on the Act of Voting
In addition to societal and personal implications, there
are also technical implications affiliated with the use of
Internet technology to cast a vote. In addition to increasing
voter participation, I-voting can also potentially increase
the accuracy with which votes are cast. I-voting may
increase both the number of ballots that are submitted, and
it may also increase the accuracy of the ballots submitted.
Tomz and Van Houwelling [35] conclude that the use of
appropriate voting technologies can greatly decrease the
number of invalid ballots. Internet voting could be one
such technology.
G.

Additional Research
One important digital divide factor mentioned in prior
literature that may impact intentions to use I-voting is
ethnicity. As explained before, we did not include ethnicity
in our model because we could not obtain sufficient
variance in ethnicity levels to conduct proper analyses.
However, we provide in Tables 7 and 8 descriptive data on
I-voting intentions and voting behaviors per ethnic
category for registered voters.
TABLE 7. I-VOTING INTENTIONS BY ETHNICITY FOR
REGISTERED VOTERS
Ethnicity Category

Caucasian
African-Americans
Hispanic
Asian
Native Americans
Other/ Not reported

218
98
6
4
3
8
325

I-voting
means
4.92
4.72
5.29
6.63
6.08
5.00
4.90

I-voting St.
Dev.
1.85
1.88
1.56
0.75
1.59
1.62
1.85

TABLE 8. LAST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION VOTING BEHAVIOR

BY ETHNICITY FOR REGISTERED VOTERS
Ethnicity Category

Voted

Caucasian
African-Americans
Hispanic
Asian
Native Americans
Not reported/Other

210
96
6
4
3
6
325

192
93
5
1
2
6
299

Did not
vote
18
3
1
3
1
0
26

As can be seen from the tables, there might be some

important impact of ethnicity on I-voting intentions. As
such, we believe that future research should seek samples
with a wider variety of ethnicities to conduct statistical
analyses on the impact of ethnicity on I-voting intentions.

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210
Future studies should also explore the impact of concepts
such as Internet trust and Internet self-efficacy on I-voting
acceptance. Conversely, future studies of adoption of
technologies should include relevant digital divide
variables that may have an effect in technology acceptance.
An additional avenue for future research is to expand
the digital divide model by exploring additional factors that
can impact the intentions to use I-voting. While we
included the digital divide factors that are most often found
to impact use in electronic services contexts, it is possible
that additional factors could be of importance.
Finally, as previously stated, future research would
benefit from finding a sample of respondents that is more
representative of the current population of the United
States of America in order to have conclusions that are
more representative [36].

[3]
[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]
[8]

[9]

[10]
[11]

VI.

CONCLUSION

The combination of I-voting and the digital divide

provides a solid foundation for research on the new areas
of e-democracy, civic mindedness and civil society. This
paper enhances the Internet adoption literature and
emphasizes its relevance to the developing research on eparticipation. This study identifies prominent demographic
predictors of I-voting intention. Using only digital divide
factors (demographics), the proposed model explains 9.5%
of the variance in intention. Considering their significance,
these variables should be used to enhance the explanatory
power of future e-services models that explore technology
adoption using established theories such as diffusion of
innovation [37] and technology acceptance [38]. The
factors identified here can serve as a foundation for future
studies of the digital divide and I-voting adoption
As local, state, and national governments begin to
experiment with Internet voting, now is the time to identify
the characteristics that distinguish potential I-voters from
non-I-voters. This study identifies digital divide factors
that affect ones intention to use an I-voting system.
Governments should find ways to reduce the digital divide
issues related to income (by providing more inexpensive
access) and Internet experience (by providing community
training and access to technology), and find ways to
minimize the effects of the age-based digital divide.

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
A prior and shorter version of this work was presented
at the 2010 Cyberlaw Conference in St-Marteens,
Netherlands, February 11-14, 2010.

[22]

[23]

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