Abstract
Estonia is the only country in the world where all voters can vote online in national elections. In the 2015 election, 31% of voters did so. This paper discusses the sociology and politics of online voting in Estonia. I first show that online voting is a partisan project. Liberal, conservative, and social democratic parties support online voting as a way of modernizing the electoral system, while populist and agrarian parties oppose it as a tool for political manipulation. I then show that online voting is demographically and politically biased. Online voters are more urban, richer, and better-educated than conventional voters and non-voters. The opposition left-populist Center Party receives fewer votes online than the governing market-liberal Reform Party. This is a bad thing for democracy and Estonia should discontinue online voting.
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