E-voting in the 2005 local elections in Estonia and the broader impact for future e-voting projects

Abstract

In this project, we analyze the introduction of voting by internet (e-voting) in political elections. In particular, we focus on the Estonian municipal elections held on 16 October 2005, where the possibility of casting a vote via the internet was newly introduced. This introduction of e-voting represented a true world-premiere: even though internet voting has so far been used in consultative decision making processes around the globe, in private elections and in a number of formally binding referendums, the local elections in Estonia were the first time that an electorate of an entire country could cast its vote over the Internet in a public election. On behalf of the Council of Europe, and in close collaboration with the Estonian authorities, our research team academically accompanied this landmark event in e-democracy. Completing the process-tracing of the internet voting implementation, we conducted a survey among over 900 citizens, allowing us to conduct an in-depth study on voting behaviour in e-elections. Our research shows what voting channels have been used by what type of citizes and contains a fine-grained analysis of participation patterns and political behaviour of the citizens in these elections. Finally, the data and findings of our research allows us to make a selective comparisons with other studies in the field of e-democracy, which we conducted in several elections and referendums in Switzerland.