Lots of people have said it – but is the web truly democratic? Really and truly? Is the web genuinely equally accessible?

And for that matter, is anything actually equally accessible? Apologies for sounding pessimistic, but the only thing I could come up with was oxygen. I asked a few of my friends to name some items that they considered democratic. The only good one they could think of was mortality. Wee! This post is on its downward spiral.

In fairness, I should make the distinction between democracy and democratic principles. Here the definition becomes less stringent. Self-regulation is an integral part of the democratic ideal. Web 2.0 technologies allow the people - the constituents - to produce, monitor and therefore control data. For the most part, there is no federal intervention. You can flag me for removal or report me to the webmaster, but there is (almost) absolute freedom of expression.

As 2008 is an election year, I voted in the California primaries a couple of weeks ago. I walked a few blocks to my local polling station, drew the arrow connecting my selection and then happily slapped my shiny red ‘I Voted!’ sticker on. Although the process wasn’t particularly painful, I couldn’t help but feel the experience was kind of a pain in the arse – at least for me. I would have rather cast my vote online. But would that process make voting more accessible, or less? Would the majority of United States citizens prefer to vote electronically?

I did some research, and it seems someone has had a similar thought. E-democracy is in its infancy, but it appears to have caught the attention of civic-focused groups who want to keep the governed closer to the folks with power. Electronic voting is their wish list, as is reaching out to youth and boosting voter turnout. However, E-democracy does have its shortcomings. Those in opposition feel that utilizing technology would strengthen the digital divide shown in different age groups. It would also be costly and potentially worse than ‘hanging chads’ in terms of security and identity fraud.

So will I be casting my vote from my laptop in 2012? I wouldn’t be surprised.