Election-Campaign Law

M-Voting in Estonia

By Thad Hall

According to a recent report:

After pioneering online voting, the Baltic state of Estonia aims to be the first in the world to give voters the right to cast ballots using mobile telephones.

Parliament adopted a law Thursday allowing “m-voting” from 2011, six years after a landmark election in which Estonians were able to vote via the Internet.

“The system that allows people to take part in elections using their mobile phones is completely safe,” Liia Hanni, programme director at the Estonian e-Governance Academy Foundation, told AFP.

“It won’t mean that you just need a mobile phone to vote or that you can vote sending a text message,” she explained.

Under the plan, m-voters will only be allowed to use telephones provided with certified SIM cards which will enable the person’s identity to be verified before they can access a confidential electronic voting system similar to that used for e-voting.

Full post as published by Election Updates on December 12, 2008 (boomark / email).