Internet Voting in Comparative Perspective: The Case of Estonia

Abstract

Several countries have conducted Internet voting trials in binding public elections over the past decade, including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, Estonia—a former Soviet republic and now a full member of the European Union—has advanced the farthest in deploying Internet voting. In this article, we focus on how the Estonians have systematically addressed the legal and technical considerations required to make Internet voting a functioning voting platform, as well as the political and cultural framework that promoted this innovation. Using data from our own qualitative and quantitative studies of the Estonian experience, we consider who voted over the Internet in these elections, and the political implications of the voting platform.

Analysis of Security Requirements of Futuristic Mobile Applications

“…For increasing reliability of the system Dimitris [8] suggest to decrypt and count votes from ballots only after proper auditing procedures are followed. Also voting control and recount should be feasible by system while anonymity of voters is maintained [9] [10].…”

“…To prevent malicious users from using data even when they have access to it, data should be encrypted when stored. To increase security data as well as keys, identifiers and metadata are also encrypted [7] [8]. Also communication between systems located remotely need to be encrypted to prevent malicious users from eavesdropping.…”

“…Even though considered slower and more resource consuming then symmetric key cryptography technique, asymmetric key cryptography technique is considered more secure and suitable for exchanging information securely over internet due to public key infrastructure that it uses [8].…”

E-Voting: Success and Failures. Lesson for Africa

“…Also, Estonia was a victim of a major cyber-attack in 2007 immediately after the national elections, which sensitized the country for matters of e-vulnerability [18]. After intensive research by [6)], they identified four important reasons for the success of e-voting in Estonia including: …”

“…This at times leads to political unrest [1]. Many researchers suggested e-voting as a solution to the problems of paper ballots electoral process [2][3] [4][5] [6][7] [8].…”