New methodology for calculating cost-efficiency of different ways of voting: is internet voting cheaper?

Abstract

ABSTRACT New ways of voting in elections are being sought by electoral administrations worldwide who want to reverse declining voter turnouts without increasing electoral budgets. This paper presents a novel approach to cost accounting for multi-channel elections based on local elections in Estonia. By doing so, it addresses an important gap in the academic literature in this field. The authors confirm that internet voting was most cost-efficient voting channel offered to Estonian voters.