IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

A visit to this medieval capital city of Estonia on the banks of the Baltic Sea - that even boasts of three Indian restaurants bang on its tourist district - has been quite a revelation in more than one way.

I not only bumped into Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and managed to exchange a pleasant hello with him - despite no prior appointment - but also got myself clicked, sitting on his coveted chair in the cabinet room for all of 15 minutes.

In der baltischen Republik Estland fanden gestern Kommunalwahlen statt, dabei gab es erstmals eine Weltpremiere, denn die Esten konnten ihre Stimme erstmals auch online abgeben. Weil der Staatspräsident Arnold Rüütel kein Freund der Online-Wahlen ist, hat er die elektronische Stimmabgabe aber mehrmals kritisiert und dafür gesorgt, dass die Gesetze zur Wahl nicht unterzeichnet wurden. Weil man bei der Onlinewahl die Stimme ändern kann, gab es auch Kritik das die Nicht-Computer-Wähler den Interntetnutzern nicht mehr gleichgestellt sind. Schlussendlich sprach das Verfassungsgericht in Estland ein Machtwort, die Wahl wurde erlaubt.

Estonia has become the first country to enable citizens nationwide to vote online this month in an experiment that officials have hailed as a success.

Officials claim to have received no reports of any flaws in the online voting system. The number of ballots actually cast online was only about 9,500 - less than 1 per cent of all voters - but Tarvi Martens, a spokesman for the Estonian National Electorial Committee said that "everything has gone smoothly" adding that they hope to see participation rise to 20 per cent of votes being cast electronically.

A tiny Baltic nation last week became what appears to be the first country to open its its local elections to Internet voting on a nationwide level--although only about 1 percent of the votes were cast online.

Estonia--which has a population of roughly 1.4 million and is geographically about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined--counted a total of about half a million votes in its local government council elections, according to preliminary numbers on the Estonian National Electoral Committee's Web site. Roughly 6,000 of those votes were cast online, according to preliminary town-level tallies posted at the site.