Riigikogu Elections Held Online

Estonia, home of Skype and the flat tax, is experimenting with online voting for the Riigikogu, its parliament:

E-voting will be introduced for a parliamentary election on March 4, for the first time after it was used in more limited local elections in 2005. It is a fresh sign of Estonia's strong embrace of technology since it quit the Soviet Union in 1991.

The e-voting system was tested earlier this week, including the chance to choose the "king of the forest". Voters could pick an animal from 10 candidates, including moose, deer and boars.

Those savvy Estonians should have no problem voting online--their fogies already use make phone calls over the Internet:

"I will be voting in these elections via Internet, it is a good system and I think my grandfather, who is over 80, will be doing the same as well, he already calls me on Skype," said Toomas Talts, a technology worker, as he tested the system.

For more on why Estonia rocks, go here and here.

Comments

[VM]

"The e-voting system was tested earlier this week, including the chance to choose the "king of the forest". Voters could pick an animal from 10 candidates, including moose, deer and boars."

Hrumph. As if there were any choice there.

/kicks pebble.

[DenkerDichter]

If only Americans would learn....

Sadly, they embrace the communists who go by the names Clinton (terrorists), Bush, McCain, Feingold, Sarbanes, Obama (terrorist), Kennedy (terrorist), Roosevelt, Biden, NBC, CBS, ABC, Soros, Fox, Turner, Pelosi (terrorist), Oxley, and millions more traitors to freedom.

Long live Estonia, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave! Land of Truth, not Maoism!

[Dan T.]

Now, why would a libertarian like Ms.Mangu-Ward be in favor of a system of voting that was so easy to rig or hack?

[Chris S.]

An electronic vote for something that sounds like a combination of "rig" and "sudoku"? I'm just sayin'.

[SeeingI]

I nominate Bert Lahr for king of the foreeeeeeest!

Seriously, who won?

[Pi Guy]

I'm not exactly sure why electronic voting systems are always perceived as being so easy to rig or hack as opposed to some other system.

Obviously many, many paper ballot votes have been tampered with and, it seems to me, that that is a much easier task as it really doesn't require any technical expertise and offers little or no internal system for cathcing such an act. In the case of identity theft, more than 80% of the personal info is obtained by non-computer methods.

http://www.bbb.org/alerts/article.asp?ID=565

I believe (but cannot support at this time) that the same is true of credit card fraud. And, I suspect that banks would have abandoned their use of computers by now if there were many people out there capable of committing such offenses.

In essence, I don't believe that it is as common or as easy as is routinely believed to cheat computer systems.

[Seitz]

Don't blame me. I voted for Moose.

[Jon H]

If it shows pictures of the candidates, everyone will vote for Carmen Kass, supermodel and chess wiz.

[ed]

I predict victory for Ron Paul.

[mith]

"their fogies already use make phone calls over the Internet"

If I read this phrase with a Yakov Smirnoff voice, it almost makes sense.

j/k

[lunchstealer]

Estonia is awesome because of the Bill Clinton babushka doll (I know it's not called that, but I can never remember the name of those things) that I got in Talin. It had Hilary, Paula, Monica, and a cigar in it.

It may be the single tackiest thing I own.

[Isaac Bartram]

lunchstealer

I know if I saw something like that I'd have to have me one too. 🙂

[Timon19]

Harumph.

Latvia's better.

[Some James]

Matryoshka, lunchstealer

Babushka is either a Russian grandmother, or a Polish woman's headcovering, depending on how its pronounced.

[Legate Damar]

Regarding Estonia, now I'm not saying that libertarians shouldn't be saying "See? Just like Estonia!" but it's hardly heaven if you're not ethnically Estonian. One of the reasons that unemployment there is so low (in addition to the ass-kicking economy) is that they've done everything they can to make ethnic Russians realize that they're no longer welcome, and subsequently most have already left. They were a significany minority of the population as recently as 5 years ago. Not to throw a damper on the party, but just sayin...

[Just me]

Most have left? You have to be kidding me.

Population of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians in Estonia in 2000 - 401 379

Population of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians in Estonia in 2006 - 389 805

The difference is only 11 574. I don't see anything significant there, do you? (I'm sure you concider the fact that the population of Estonians has fallen in these years from 935 884 to 921 908 - difference is 13 976.)

[Adam]

Horrible idea (like mail-in voting), mostly because it removes the secrecy the ballot box gives. Someone being able to stand over your shoulder and watch you vote opens the door to all kinds of trouble.

Bribes...now that the briber can confirm you're voting the way they want.

One person in a household can use all the eligible votes that household gets. Maybe some guy's wife never votes..he can easily submit hers. Maybe the wife is a closet-Democrat and the husband is a die-hard Republican from a die-hard Republican family...maybe she doesn't want to admit she's a Democrat.

I'm sure there are lots more similar situations.

[Mo]

I'm not exactly sure why electronic voting systems are always perceived as being so easy to rig or hack as opposed to some other system.

Because you can't write a script to make hundreds of paper ballots when you break into the old fashioned system. It's relatively easy to jack a bank as an inside job. Fortunately for a bank, the people in charge make enough where robbing the bank is suicide. Whereas in an election, the people in power are also the ones that certify elections. See: Florida, 2000 (Not that I'm saying it was rigged, but do you think if Katherine Harris was a Democrat, she would have acted the same way?)

[wsdave]

"The e-voting system was tested earlier this week, including the chance to choose the "king of the forest". Voters could pick an animal from 10 candidates, including moose, deer and boars."

DUHH!!! Everyone knows that Totoro is the king of the forest!

Plus, Totoro makes the wind blow.

[estonian]

_Horrible idea (like mail-in voting), mostly because it removes the secrecy the ballot box gives. Someone being able to stand over your shoulder and watch you vote opens the door to all kinds of trouble._

actually, it is possible to vote several times via net and the last vote counts. or afterward, if you take the paper-ballot vote then the paper-ballot vote counts.