How e-voting technology challenges traditional concepts of citizenship: An analysis of French voting rituals

Abstract

This paper describes the direct relationship between the perception of citizenship and its material expression, with emphasis on how changing expression obliges a rethink of the channels of mediation between citizens and their elected leaders. An analysis of the French voting ritual will show how our voting system is embedded in a specific cultural conception of citizenship . The emergence of new voting procedures could then be analysed on a social point of view as the will for citizens to rejuvenate some ancient conception of citizenship. I propose a table which maps out the connection between citizenship models and their new technological materialization. A two-way flow of creativity between models and tools which broadens scope for grassroots participation then explains the creation of new rituals as well as the reframing of the role of existing rituals.