All over the world, elections play a significant role in the governance of countries.
Respective countries have timelines and specific periods for voting, each country outlining its voting rules and methods.
But in the entire European continent, Estonia is the only country that has the most advanced internet voting solution. Citizens in the Northern European country can vote online both in national elections and in the European Parliament elections.
The country became famous in 2001 when it introduced its e-minded coalition government. Four years later, Estonia made history as the first country globally to hold legally binding general elections over the Internet.
Following their pilot project for municipal elections, the country has now provided internet voting (i-voting) in local, parliamentary, presidential, and European elections in 2005-2009, 2007-2011, 2011, and 2009 respectively.
The 2011 parliamentary elections saw a significant increase in the usage of Internet voting (over 24 percent of all votes were cast using the Internet).
By 2023, Estonian voters chose to vote online in the Estonian Parliament elections, with over 50% of voters employing the internet voting option.
Today, Estonia is known as the longest-standing, most technologically advanced, and trusted internet voting solution globally.
Although citizens have the I-voting option, there are also the mail and traditional pen-and-paper voting processes available at polling stations.
How Estonians vote
In Estonia, voters can cast their ballots online before Election Day during a week-long early voting period. Voters can submit their Internet votes multiple times, but only the last one they cast counts in the official tally.
To vote online, citizens require a smart national ID card or a "mobile ID," which works through special SIM cards in mobile phones introduced in 2011. Once verified, voters use a platform to send their vote to a central database. The vote is digitally signed and placed in a virtual "envelope" along with voter identification and session details.
To keep the process private, the names of online voters are removed from the electoral register used on Election Day at polling stations. If a voter also casts a paper ballot during the early voting period, it cancels out any previous Internet vote they may have made. This system allows voters who might feel pressured or coerced to vote a certain way to redo their vote in private and overwrite any previous, potentially compromised ballot. To avoid doubt and contention, voters can verify their votes within 30 minutes after casting a vote.
With the help of a smart device, voters can verify if their I-vote reached the electronic ballot box correctly. There are also options to vote using traditional paper ballots.
Body in charge of elections
The National Electoral Committee is an independent institution responsible for holding free, general, uniform, and direct voting (offline and online) making sure that every voter has only one vote and ensuring that the vote remains secret.
European Parliamentary Elections 2024
The 2024 European elections came off from the 3rd to 9th of June 2024 in Estonia. Estonian citizens and citizens of other EU countries residing in Estonia elected 7 Members of the European Parliament with the European People’s Party led by Ursula von der Leyon winning most seats. Voters in Estonia were 37.60% of the total voting population from Europe.
