IVoting in Estonia

From VA-Wiki

Author & Background

Werner Brockjan, Seminar Moderator

Summary

Voters in Estonia (a tiny baltic-state with about 2 million citizens in the north-east of Europe) were going to the polls in October 2005 in local elections but, for the first time, nearly all of them have had the chance to cast their vote if they wanted to via the internet before the polls were actually held.

About 800,000 Estonians, or 80% of those on the electoral roll, had access to a new e-voting system, the largest run by any European Union country. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip had voted online from his office a week before.

The number of ballots actually cast online was only about 9,500, or less than 1% of all voters, but those running the Estonian e-voting project hope that 20% of votes cast in future elections will be registered in this way.

The first in a parliamentary election was made available for the 2007 elections, in which more than 30,000 citizens voted over the Internet.

What technology was used?

It has been made possible because most Estonians now carry a national identity card equipped with a computer-readable microchip and it is these cards which they use to get access to the online ballot.

All a voter needs is a computer, an electronic card reader, their ID card and its PIN number, and they can vote from anywhere in the world.

E-votes could only be cast during three days of advance voting for these elections. On election day itself people have to go to polling stations and fill in a paper ballot.

Which goals where achieved?

This, the largest-scale e-voting scheme run by any EU country, is being keenly watched across Europe.

Online voting has been promoted as a quicker, cheaper way of collecting and counting ballots. Those concerned about falling turnout in elections hope that the convenience of not having to go to a polling station will encourage more people to take part.

Worries about security

The Estonians say their system avoid security problems because people already have their micro-chipped ID cards and know the PIN codes to use them. However safe the technology, if people do not go to a polling station, you cannot tell who is using whose ID card or if a voter is being put under pressure when they cast their ballot.

To tackle that problem, the Estonian election allows multiple online votes to be cast, with each subsequent vote cancelling out the previous one.

And the system still gives supremacy to paper ballots, so anyone who voted online can also go to a polling station and vote in the traditional way, cancelling out the vote they cast online.