Internet voting in Estonia 2005–2019: Evidence from eleven elections

Internet voting is a highly contested topic in electoral studies. This article examines Internet voting in Estonia over 15 years and 11 nation-wide elections. It focuses on the following questions: How is Internet voting organized and used in Estonia? How have the Estonian Internet voting system and its usage evolved over time? What are the preconditions and consequences of large-scale deployment of Internet voting? The results suggest that the rapid uptake and burgeoning usage rates reflect the system's embeddedness in a highly developed digital state and society. Through continuous technological and legal innovation and development, Estonia has built an advanced Internet voting system that complies with normative standards for democratic elections and is widely trusted and used by the voters. Internet voting has not boosted turnout in a setting where voting was already easily accessible. Neither has it created digital divides: Internet voting in Estonia has diffused to the extent that socio-demographic characteristics no longer predict usage. This, combined with massive uptake, reduces incentives for political parties to politicize the novel voting mode

Facial Recognition for Remote Electronic Voting – Missing Piece of the Puzzle or Yet Another Liability?

Reliable voter identification is one of the key requirements to guarantee eligibility and uniformity of elections. In a remote setting, this task becomes more complicated compared to voter identification at a physical polling station. In case strong cryptographic mechanisms are not available, biometrics is one of the available alternatives to consider. In this paper, we take a closer look at facial recognition as a possible remote voter identification measure. We cover technical aspects of facial recognition relevant to voting, discuss the main architectural decisions, and analyse some of the remaining open problems, including dispute resolution and privacy issues

The diffusion of internet voting : usage patterns of internet voting in Estonia between 2005 and 2015

Available online 12 July 2016E-voting has the potential to lower participation thresholds and increase turnout, but its technical complexity may produce other barriers to participation. Using Rogers' theory of the diffusion of innovations, we examined how the use of e-voting has changed over time. Data from eight e-enabled elections between 2005 and 2015 in Estonia, were used to investigate changes to the profile of e-voters and contrast them to those voting by conventional means. Owing to the aggregate share of e-voters increasing with each election, with one third of voters now casting their vote remotely over the internet, there was a lack of conclusive evidence regarding whether the new voting technology had diffused homogenously among the voting population, or remained a channel for the resourceful and privileged. Our findings show that diffusion has taken place, but not until after the first three e-enabled elections. Thus, internet voting has the potential to be used by a wide range of voter types, bridge societal divisions, and emerge as an inclusive innovative voting technology. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.This research was supported by Estonian Research Council grant nr. PUT523