Conference: The Prospects for Electronic Democracy

CPSR/Pittsburgh is pleased to announce that, thanks to the support of our dean, Jim Morris, SCS faculty, staff, and students can attend the upcoming INSITES Electronic Democracy Conference at no charge. Register as you normally would (http://www.cmu.edu/insites); in the payment section of the registration form, note that you are using the SCS subsidy. And if you register, please make sure you attend! SCS will be charged for your registration whether you show up or not.

Why should you attend this conference? Well, the topic is especially timely, given recent news of problems with new voting machines in Florida and elsewhere. Election commissions all over the country are making decisions right now about the next generation of voting technology, often without understanding the complex issues involved. This is an area where we as computing researchers can really contribute, and we all have a stake.

The full talk announcement follows:

On September 20-21, 2002, InSITeS (the Institute for the Study of Information Technology and Society) is sponsoring a conference at Carnegie Mellon University entitled, "The Prospects for Electronic Democracy." The conference will assemble an international group of researchers and democracy practitioners to provide an interdisciplinary and multidimensional assessment of potential for new information technologies to promote and revitalize democracy. Panels will focus on the experience and consequences of e-democracy; the social and psychological contexts of on-line deliberation; e-democracy's impacts on the institutions of representative democracy; and the implications of developments in information technology for the future of democratic theory and practice. Keynote speakers at the conference's two luncheons will discuss the use of technology for community building efforts in Washington, D.C. and a variety of e-democracy web applications. The registration fees covers admission to all panels, both lunches, and all materials. Although the fee for the general public is $275, full-time students may enroll for only $15.00 and Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff may register for $25. For links to the detailed conference brochure and on-line registration, go to InSITeS.