E-voting ready, masks merely recommended

Photo: Tairo Lutter

Monday will mark the start of local government council elections in Estonia. There are no direct restrictions or obligations at the first elections to be held in Estonia in the conditions of COVID-19.

Wearing a mask is recommended and people will not be asked to produce immunization certificates. “We will be observing general public recommendations. We recommend wearing a mask, maintaining social distance in the polling station and disinfecting hands. The same recommendations extend to regional electoral committees. Members will be tasked with dispersing voters when necessary and disinfecting work areas,” Arne Koitmäe, head of the National Electoral Service, said, adding that he also recommends not leaving voting to the last minute.

If a voter is infected or isolating, they can cast their vote electronically or phone in to have a ballot box brought to their residence.

For the first time, a universal elections week is used, meaning that voting will take place uninterrupted from Monday through Sunday. All polling stations will be open from Friday. While e-voting takes place round the clock, polling stations are open 12-20 Monday through Saturday and 9-20 on Sunday. It is no longer possible to vote electronically on Sunday.

Electronic voter lists make for another first. “If until now, the voter was tied to a single polling station near their home, it is now possible to vote at all polling divisions in one’s electoral district,” Koitmäe explained.

E-voting systems stand ready. The development process following Riigikogu elections in 2019 has been long and complex. “Various political changes have also been made since then. It has not been an easy development cycle,” Deputy Director of the State Information System’s Authority (RIA) Margus Arm said.

“We have now gotten to a point where we will be making no further changes [until elections]. Unless we need to fix a critical vulnerability. The latter always remains a possibility with any kind of software and there are no ironclad guarantees,” Arm said, adding that people should make sure to update the ID-card software in their computers.

Alo Einla, head of the elections department at RIA, said that while “the locks are tried every day” and “Estonians shouldn’t imagine our e-voting exists in a bubble in which there is no outside interest,” there have been no incidents where the e-voting system is compromised as a result of outside attacks, forcing RIA to take measures.

What have been the most important security lessons from e-voting? Margus Arm: “Users can rely on a validation tool to make sure the vote they cast went to the right person.”