On March 4, 2007 in Estonia for the first time they were held parliamentary elections with remote electronic voting. It was one of the first ever Remote Internet Voting experiments, and there was obviously great anticipation to understand how it works.
At the time, many were deluding themselves about the potential of electronic voting, considered ideal for increasing citizen participation and strengthen democracy. It was no coincidence that the first real test took place in the small Baltic republic, at the forefront of the world for the digital transformation of the Public Administration. The electoral round was the fifth since Estonia had regained its independence and the first since its entry into the European Union.
The basis of the system was (and still is) the electronic identity card, which since 2002 it has allowed all citizens to identify themselves via the Internet and sign documents digitally. A law passed a few years earlier had established that remote electronic voting in Estonia is a free choice and that those who do it can change their vote as many times as they want as long as the polls are open, by voting again electronically or voting with the cross on a sheet of paper at the polling station; On the other hand, it is not possible to vote at the polling station and then change your mind and vote electronically: the law establishes the prevalence of paper over the digital format, therefore a paper vote is final and closes the process.
Two weeks before the votes, one delegation of the OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) had gone to Estonia to oversee the fairness of the elections. Just 5.4% of voters chose to resort to Internet voting. European observers said to themselves very satisfied with what they had been able to see (“the system worked”)but they said that while using the Internet to vote theoretically increased the possibility of democratic participation, it did not solve the risks of manipulation by external attacks and did not guarantee the right to secrecy of every single vote.
In fact, we are still there and no substantial progress has been made.
In 2019, a task force appointed by the Estonian government published a document containing 25 proposals to improve the effectiveness of electronic voting but added that “the electronic voting system should definitely be considered part of the state infrastructure and its development is an urgent priority. “Using” all the best technologies available “.