How it began
Electronic voting gained support in Estonia in 2001 under a coalition government that favored digital services. Internet voting with binding results was first used in the local elections of October 2005, when 9,317 people voted online, 1.9 percent of participating voters. According to the Estonian election authorities, Estonia was the first country in the world to implement internet voting in national elections. It was used in a parliamentary election for the first time in 2007.
How it works
A voter downloads the voting application and identifies with the national ID card and a card reader, or with Mobile-ID or Smart-ID. The application checks eligibility, shows the right candidate list, encrypts the vote, and the voter confirms it with a digital signature. An independent service timestamps each vote. Voters can vote again as often as they like during the advance period, and only the last vote counts. A paper ballot cast at a polling station cancels the internet vote.
Who pushed back
In August 2005 President Arnold Rüütel challenged the law in the Supreme Court, arguing that repeat voting breached equality. The court ruled that an internet voter has no more influence on the result than any other voter. Outside computer security experts said in 2014 that malware on election servers could change votes, and election observers from the OSCE have raised concerns at each parliamentary election.
What changed first
Use grew at every election: 30,275 internet voters in the 2007 parliamentary election, 104,413 in the 2009 local elections, 133,808 in 2013 and 186,034 in 2017. In 2013 a smartphone application was added so that voters could check that their vote had reached the server correctly. A redesigned system with verifiable counting was completed for the 2017 local elections.
Where it stands today
In the 2023 parliamentary elections, more than half of all votes, about 51 percent, were cast over the internet for the first time. Since 2021 an internet voter can still change the vote on paper on election day. In its rulings of 2019 and 2023 the Supreme Court dismissed election complaints but asked that key parts of the procedure be set out more clearly in law.
