Estonian Internet Voting Called a Success

composer314 writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the small European nation of Estonia has conducted large-scale voting over the Internet. From the article: "Last week, Estonia became the first country in the world to hold an election allowing voters nationwide to cast ballots over the internet. Fewer than 10,000 people, or 1 percent of registered voters, participated online in elections for mayors and city councils across the country, but officials hailed the experiment as a success." The system is built on Linux." I guess it works well when the Internet is considered a human right.

Comments

Re:Direct Democracy

[bigg_nate]

The California proposition system is essentially direct democracy, and IMO it's a disaster. People aren't lawyers, and they aren't economists -- they simply don't have the skills to determine if a given law is good or not. This means we end up with ridiculous laws that sound good in a 4-word summary, like three strikes (tough on crime -- must be good!) and frozen property taxes (lower taxes -- must be good!). Additionally, as the battle over Native American casinos has shown, the public isn't any harder to buy than a politician.

Direct democracy might work at an extremely local level, but the general public simply does not have the necessary knowledge to participate in large-scale direct democracy.

Re:A success? With a 1% turnout?

[bypedd]

Although they don't suggest it, perhaps that 1% have mobility impairments and have never voted before, but now they get a chance. Obviously that's the best case scenario, but it seems a little ridiculous that there haven't been more efforts to expand the possibilities of voting. And scoffing at 1%? How many people do absentee votes in the U.S. (or any democratic country)? I would guess it's not more than 10%. And yet, for many, it's the only way they can vote. And absentee voting has been around for years, so I think 1% is not fantastic, but it's a good start.