Estonian Internet Voting Called a Success

composer314 writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the small European nation of Estonia has conducted large-scale voting over the Internet. From the article: "Last week, Estonia became the first country in the world to hold an election allowing voters nationwide to cast ballots over the internet. Fewer than 10,000 people, or 1 percent of registered voters, participated online in elections for mayors and city councils across the country, but officials hailed the experiment as a success." The system is built on Linux." I guess it works well when the Internet is considered a human right.

It's SUCH a success

Such a success, we got back twice as many votes as our population! We had no idea it would work so well!

Isn't Estonia that "fake country" in Dilbert?

Call me a geographically challenged USA-ian, but I think this must be a hoax.
If you read the Dilbert cartoon, Estonia is the fake country with the bearded people

And if it were real, I'm sure I would have heard of it buy now since all the real countries have obvious names like England, Mexico, Canada, France, etc. etc.
I actually wonder about some of those -stan prefixed former Russian countries...do they exist?

Re:Isn't Estonia that "fake country" in Dilbert?

Estonia [simpleworldmaps.com]
You're welcome.

Re:Isn't Estonia that "fake country" in Dilbert?

No, that country is called Elbonia. Scott Adams created it to avoid making fun of any particular country.

Re:Isn't Estonia that "fake country" in Dilbert?

No, that's Elbonia- Estonia is about 50 miles north of where Elbonia is supposed to be. They're full of forests and songs instead of mud. (no, really- their revolution was called the "singing revolution" because as the soviet tanks were leaving, they were followed by crowds of people singing songs. Velio Tormis was their "Conductor General", and they've only been free since 1992).

Re:Isn't Estonia that "fake country" in Dilbert?

Estonia is the fake country with the bearded people.

No thats Elbonia, and I deeply resent your ignorance we are not a fake country [uncyclopedia.org].

I actually wonder about some of those -stan prefixed former Russian countries...do they exist?

Well, the thing is those *stan countries were blasted into in orbit around Pluto by the Soviet space agency during the cold war since they proved to be a general nuisance. The only exception is Afghanistan which had to be brought down to earth a few years ago for a major overhaul due to a massive rodent infestation.

Re:Isn't Estonia that "fake country" in Dilbert?

I actually wonder about some of those -stan prefixed former Russian countries...do they exist?

Like -stanUkraine? Or -stanGeorgia? Hmm. Not sure, but I think they're fake.

Estonia a little reality check

Estonia was part of the Russian empire until 1918, it was independent from 1918 to 1940 when it was forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union, all along it has been an ethnically distinct region. Estonia had only been part of Russia for 200 years prior to 1710 it had been part of either Denmark, Poland or Sweden.

It was never an ethnically Russian area.

Re:It's ELBONIA

The following are actual countries ending in -stan Former members of the USSR: - Kazakhstan - Uzbekistan - Turkmenistan - Tajikistan - Kyrgyzstan Not members of the USSR: - Afghanistan (but almost!) - Pakistan "-stan" is a suffix in Farsi and Sanskrit m

A success? With a 1% turnout?

I wonder what would have had to happen for it to be considered a failure.

Re:A success? With a 1% turnout?

Perhaps it displayed a snappy song-and-dance number.

"Hey, we're Estonia,
We like macaronia,
And it's time to voooote!"

That would be a success of a kind.

Re:A success? With a 1% turnout?

Although they don't suggest it, perhaps that 1% have mobility impairments and have never voted before, but now they get a chance. Obviously that's the best case scenario, but it seems a little ridiculous that there haven't been more efforts to expand the possibilities of voting. And scoffing at 1%? How many people do absentee votes in the U.S. (or any democratic country)? I would guess it's not more than 10%. And yet, for many, it's the only way they can vote. And absentee voting has been around for years, so I think 1% is not fantastic, but it's a good start.

And in other news

An unprecedented write-in vote by internet users sends Kevin Mitnick to the Whitehouse.

hacker voters..

Were that to happen in the United States we'd get 500 million votes for Senator Linus Torvalds..

Privacy?

To cast an online ballot, voters need a special ID card, a $24 device that reads the card and a computer with Internet access. About 80 percent of Estonian voters have the ID cards, which have been used since 2002 for online access to bank accounts and tax records.

Election committee officials said the ID card system had proved effective and reliable and dismissed any security concerns with using it for the online ballot.

Information is sparse, but does anyone know if votes were linked to who voted for what? And what kind of proof can we find that voting a particular way won't involve retaliation...? I'd like this in the USA, but I'm unsure /adjusts tin-foil hat

Re:Privacy?

Information is sparse, but does anyone know if votes were linked to who voted for what?

Do you mean are they supposed to be, or if they can be? I'm assuming they aren't supposed to be, but without a doubt they can be. The cards are used "for online acces

Re:Privacy?

Find out it at http://www.vvk.ee/ [www.vvk.ee]
Its the official Vabariigi valimiskomision (National Electoral Commitee) page.
There is even an english section.

Diebold's officials . . .

. . . downplayed reports of a test round of balloting in which tabulations resulted in George W. Bush as the winner of the election for Prime Minister of Estonia.

This should not exist

Voting over the internet, or any kind of distance voting for that matter, violates a very basic premise of the democratic process : that each vote is guaranteed to belong to the one in the name of whom it is cast. There is no guarantee with remote voting that the voter has not sold her vote, or that no pressure has been exercised on her.

Voting should consist in having people go completely alone in isolated booths. A vote on a country's government is not an internet poll.

Direct Democracy

I see this and future use of internet voting as steps toward direct democracy. I predict that within this century, some countries will use direct democracy [wikipedia.org] as the legislative body on the local and regional level. Direct Democracy is where citizens can directly propose and vote on legislation, making representatives redundant.

When democracy was first proposed, it was long argued by the elite that peasants were not smart enough to rule themselves; they needed kings to keep society from collapsing. Even the first democracies were collections of wealthy land-owning males -- almost 90% of the population, including women, slaves, and peasants, were not enfranchised into the government. Well, those naysayers were wrong, and commoners are perfectly capable of running representational democracies.

The thing is, representatives are a compromise anyways. In days when farmers worked 14 hour days 6 days a week, no one had the time to travel meet up with everyone else to discuss politics. The American legal system is based on how long it takes a person travelling on horseback to transmit information.

Now with the advent of the internet and other communication technologies, representatives are redundant. We could propose and vote on laws ourselves, over the internet. Problems such as authentication and verification have been solved in various communication systems. As soon as the general public gets the hang of internet discussions, people will see direct democracy as a reasonable alternative to representational democracy. This could happen within a generation or two.

Of course, current politicians will resist direct democracy, because it puts them out of their incredibly powerful positions.

Re:Direct Democracy

The California proposition system is essentially direct democracy, and IMO it's a disaster. People aren't lawyers, and they aren't economists -- they simply don't have the skills to determine if a given law is good or not. This means we end up with ridiculous laws that sound good in a 4-word summary, like three strikes (tough on crime -- must be good!) and frozen property taxes (lower taxes -- must be good!). Additionally, as the battle over Native American casinos has shown, the public isn't any harder to buy than a politician.

Direct democracy might work at an extremely local level, but the general public simply does not have the necessary knowledge to participate in large-scale direct democracy.

Re:Direct Democracy

As in my comment above, people said commoners weren't smart enough to rule themselves through representational democracy, thus they needed kings and royalty to rule them. It's a tired argument.

However, you are right. People aren't lawyers, but nonetheless they are expected to follow the law to the letter. Try using this as an excuse in court: "But Your Honor! I'm not a lawyer! How could I be expected to follow the law when I can't even understand it? Why, I haven't even read it!" If people are smart enough to be expected to follow the law, they are smart enough to propose and vote on law. People are smart enough to do all of the above.

If direct democracy is implemented in any serious manner, people will become familiar enough with the law to do it well. You would study it in civics class in high school. You would talk about it over dinner just like you do other subjects. People are smart enough to finance their homes, vehicles, and education; they are smart enough to run their own businesses, and they are smart enough to follow the law in everyday life. They are smart enough to recognize right and wrong and are fully capable of proposing and arguing rules over the internet.

Estonian e-voting a glowing success

Estonian authorities have confirmed that the e-voting was a complete success and their faith in this 21st century solution was completely justified.

"It was flawless", the Chief Election Commissioner said, and in apparent attempt to gloat over his critics, who were loudly warning of problems, he added: "And it proves that contrary to what those feeble Doomsayers were saying, we should not fear new technology, we should embrace it because it is new, shiny and made in America!".

In related news, some confusion persists of the proper procedure of swearing the new Estonian President, Barney "The Pink" Dinosaur, and his vice-president Wet Noodle, both of the party "All Your Base Belong To Us". Additional complications for the traditionalists is the suprising new discoverery at the polls that apparently most Estonians turned out to be of the Jedi religion.

Re:i disagree..

Are you saying that only 49% of the population COULD have voted at all in the election? If so you're severly misinformed. 1% isn't the total number of people who voted, but the total number of people who voted online.

Re:Wont work in US

Ever heard of the absentee ballot?