EDITORIAL ⟩ E-voting requires verification

„Ready?! And now our usual response to doubters! One-two!“ – „Those who doubt the security of e-elections are pro-Kremlin!“ Caricature by Urmas Nemvalts Photo: Postimees

• E-voting must be verifiable.
• Elections give legitimacy to power.
• M-voting should now take a seat at the back.

Every now and then, the topic of the security of our e-elections comes up in Estonia. Now we have published a critical story by TalTech's leading researcher Ago Samoson, which, among other things, introduces the research results of Tarvo Treier and Kristjan Düüna, which raise several important questions.

Postimees asked Tarvi Martens, the creator of the Estonian e-voting system, to comment on them. After most of Samoson's claims, Martens wrote «False» in red. Since e-voting is a very technical field, for 99 percent of people it is currently a situation of one person’s word against another’s and everything comes down to mere trust.

However, here lies the root problem. E-voting is not like buying a washing machine online, ordering a taxi, or even making a bank transaction, where a person can check the movement of the payment and, if the money does not arrive, file a complaint with the financial supervision authority of the relevant country.

E-elections are about power: who do we give the authority to decide for four years over our security, our taxes, our general way of life? Power must be legitimate in order to function, that is, achieved in a legal way acceptable to the electorate. Legitimacy includes the verifiability of elections in a way that is understandable to the electorate.

Secondly, elections must be uniform. It is obvious that paper ballot voting and e-voting are not uniform at the moment, because in e-voting a voter can change their vote repeatedly. And the biggest problem with e-voting can probably be considered the fact that the observation procedure is jumpy and far from the convincing ritualism of such an important action that has developed over centuries in the case of paper ballot voting.

It is essentially impossible for an ordinary citizen to verify the adequacy of the results of e-voting and they must trust the experts. Unfortunately, citizens' trust in state institutions and e-elections is in a constant downward trend. Labeling doubters does not make the situation any better, but undermines Estonian democracy.

Power must be legitimate in order to function, that is, achieved in a legal way, which includes the verifiability of elections in a way that is understandable to the electorate.

Therefore, Postimees cannot be satisfied with the calls that have been made repeatedly in the past that e-elections should simply be trusted. As the saying goes, trust, but verify! What could be a functioning and publicly acceptable verification mechanism? The fact that representatives of political parties can stand next to the server at the moment the election results are announced is clearly not enough. And as long as the issue of the reliability of e-elections is being tossed around like a hot potato from one opinion piece to another and between the coalition and the opposition, we have no hope of good luck.

It would be entirely within the powers of society – researchers, universities, NGOs, the Riigikogu, the government, and simply concerned citizens – to agree on a standard to give the Estonian e-voting system a red or green light. However, this requires discussion and clarification.

Until then, however, Postimees believes that the m-voting, or mobile voting, project should be put on hold.