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Electronic voting in Estonia
Electronic voting in Estonia gained popularity in 2001 with the "e-minded" coalition government. In 2005, it became the first nation to hold legally binding general elections over the Internet with their pilot project for municipal elections. Estonian election officials declared the electronic voting system a success and found that it withstood the test of real-world use.
Internet voting was also used in the 2007 Estonian parliamentary election, another world first. In 2023 parliamentary elections for the first time more than half of the total votes were cast over the internet.
The term Power voting (or e-voting) can refer to both fixed voting locations (as in voting booths) and remote (as in over the Internet) electronic voting. To reduce confusion between the two, electronic voting is known as i-Voting in Estonia. The security model is modeled after the way in which advance voting and postal voting is handled.
The Estonian internet voting system builds on the Estonian ID card. The card is a regular and mandatory national identity document as well as a smart card, allowing for both secure remote authentication and legally binding digital signatures using the Estonian state supported public key infrastructure. As of March 2007, over 1.08 million cards have been issued (out of the Estonian population of 1.32 million).
Internet voting is available during an early voting period (four to six days prior to Election Day). Voters can change their electronic votes an unlimited number of times, with the final vote being tabulated. Anyone who votes using the Internet can vote at a polling station during the early voting period, invalidating their Internet vote. It is possible to change the electronic vote on Election Day since 2021. Votes are counted on Election Day after polling stations are closed and storage media containing the votes are physically destroyed after all election complaints are resolved at least one month after elections.
A cost-efficiency comparison of the different voting channels offered in the Estonian Municipal Elections (2017) concluded that Internet voting is the most cost-efficient voting channel offered by the Estonian electoral system.
The principle of "one person, one vote" is maintained, as the voter is able to cast more than one ballot, but only one vote is ultimately recorded. This assertion was challenged in August 2005 by Arnold Rüütel, then President of Estonia, who saw the new e-voting provisions in the Local Government Council Election Act as a breach of the principle of equality of voting. The President petitioned against the e-voting provisions to the Supreme Court of Estonia but lost.
According to the recommendations of OSCE/ODIHR election observers, and because of a voting client hacking case brought to the Supreme Court in 2011, Estonia implemented vote verification for individual voters in 2013. Voters verify their ballots by using a smartphone application which uses a QR code displayed by the desktop voting client to display the candidate for whom the vote was cast. Individual verification verifies that the vote cast was stored on the vote collection server for not more than either 30 or 60 minutes, depending on the election. The voter cannot directly verify that the vote was also tallied as cast.
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Electronic voting in Estonia
Electronic voting in Estonia gained popularity in 2001 with the "e-minded" coalition government. In 2005, it became the first nation to hold legally binding general elections over the Internet with their pilot project for municipal elections. Estonian election officials declared the electronic voting system a success and found that it withstood the test of real-world use.
Internet voting was also used in the 2007 Estonian parliamentary election, another world first. In 2023 parliamentary elections for the first time more than half of the total votes were cast over the internet.
The term Power voting (or e-voting) can refer to both fixed voting locations (as in voting booths) and remote (as in over the Internet) electronic voting. To reduce confusion between the two, electronic voting is known as i-Voting in Estonia. The security model is modeled after the way in which advance voting and postal voting is handled.
The Estonian internet voting system builds on the Estonian ID card. The card is a regular and mandatory national identity document as well as a smart card, allowing for both secure remote authentication and legally binding digital signatures using the Estonian state supported public key infrastructure. As of March 2007, over 1.08 million cards have been issued (out of the Estonian population of 1.32 million).
Internet voting is available during an early voting period (four to six days prior to Election Day). Voters can change their electronic votes an unlimited number of times, with the final vote being tabulated. Anyone who votes using the Internet can vote at a polling station during the early voting period, invalidating their Internet vote. It is possible to change the electronic vote on Election Day since 2021. Votes are counted on Election Day after polling stations are closed and storage media containing the votes are physically destroyed after all election complaints are resolved at least one month after elections.
A cost-efficiency comparison of the different voting channels offered in the Estonian Municipal Elections (2017) concluded that Internet voting is the most cost-efficient voting channel offered by the Estonian electoral system.
The principle of "one person, one vote" is maintained, as the voter is able to cast more than one ballot, but only one vote is ultimately recorded. This assertion was challenged in August 2005 by Arnold Rüütel, then President of Estonia, who saw the new e-voting provisions in the Local Government Council Election Act as a breach of the principle of equality of voting. The President petitioned against the e-voting provisions to the Supreme Court of Estonia but lost.
According to the recommendations of OSCE/ODIHR election observers, and because of a voting client hacking case brought to the Supreme Court in 2011, Estonia implemented vote verification for individual voters in 2013. Voters verify their ballots by using a smartphone application which uses a QR code displayed by the desktop voting client to display the candidate for whom the vote was cast. Individual verification verifies that the vote cast was stored on the vote collection server for not more than either 30 or 60 minutes, depending on the election. The voter cannot directly verify that the vote was also tallied as cast.