IP Democracy: Estonia to Hold First Major Internet Election

Reuters’ David Martiste offers a look into Estonia, a surprising hot-bed of technological innovation. The former Soviet satellite has an upcoming national parliamentary election, which will be the world’s first major election to take place via the Internet.

Estonian voters will be able to use their chip-embedded national i.d. cards at PC-based readers. Estonian election officials tested the system earlier this week by hosting a “king of the forest” contest, asking people to vote among various animal candidates (moose, deer and boars, for example) for the king of the forest.

A local election in Estonia in 2005 also permitted Internet voting and drew 10,000 voters who voted via the web. For the upcoming election, experts expect 20,000 to 40,000 people to vote on the net, representing a tiny fraction of the 940,000 people eligible to vote.

It seems fitting that Estonia is pioneering this modern, and logical, mode of voting. Although one of the poorest nations in the EU, Estonia has leapfrogged ahead of other countries with its use of technology because it had little legacy infrastructure to manage when it broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991. For folks in the communications business, Estonia is best known for being the code-writing hub where Skype was developed.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on February 21, 2007 5:35 PM to IP Democracy