The How and Why to Internet Voting an Attempt to Explain E-Stonia

Vinkel, Priit; Krimmer, Robert

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-52240-1_11

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…This initial hope for a turnout boost enabled by online voting has, following implementation and usage experience in select countries, given way to the sober conclusion that the impact of online voting on turnout is modest at best. It seems that even though numerous paper voters have switched to e‐voting, only a negligible share of previous nonvoters are being mobilized by this voting mode, as suggested by evidence from Canada, Switzerland, and Estonia (Chevallier, ; Goodman & Pyman, ; Goodman & Smith, ; Solvak & Vassil, ; Vinkel & Krimmer, ). The example of Estonia is especially telling here, given it is the only country in the world that offers unlimited nationwide remote Internet voting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Could Internet Voting Halt Declining Electoral Turnout? New Evidence That E‐Voting Is Habit Forming

Solvak¹,

Vassil²

2017

Policy & Internet

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The hopes that e‐voting would increase voter turnout have not really materialized; any turnout increases in those countries where Internet voting has been introduced have been negligible. But the effect of one mechanism by which this mode of voting might influence turnout is still largely unknown, namely its potential to keep voters voting at higher rates than paper voting, and thus if not reversing, then at least putting a halt to further decline in turnout. This article examines the degree to which people who vote on the Internet once carry on doing so, thereby testing the hypothesis that e‐voting is more habit forming than paper voting. We test if e‐voting displays traits typical of a habit, that is, being a self‐reinforced behavior detached from its original motivations. Survey data are analyzed from five consecutive and e‐enabled nationwide elections in Estonia between 2009 and 2015. The results suggest e‐voting to be very “sticky”; a first time e‐voter is very likely to stay e‐voting in subsequent elections at consistently higher rates than a typical paper voter is to stay paper voting, or a nonvoter to remain a nonvoter. The results call for a re‐examination of the association between Internet voting and turnout.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Could Internet Voting Halt Declining Electoral Turnout? New Evidence That E‐Voting Is Habit Forming

Solvak¹,

Vassil²

2017

Policy & Internet

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“…Estonia has multiple stakeholders, both public and private, involved in the delivery of elections (Krivonosova 2019). Estonia has a 15-year record of using new voting technologies, in particular Internet voting (Krivonosova et al 2019;Serrano-Iova 2019;Vassil et al 2016;Vinkel and Krimmer 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Parliament to a Polling Station: How to Make Electoral Laws More Comprehensible to Election Administrators

Krivonosova

Serrano-Iova

2021

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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This article suggests that law modelling (using Business Process Model and Notation, BPMN) could make electoral laws more comprehensible to different stakeholders, and in particular, to election administration, especially in cases of complex elections with multiple voting channels. This solution helps election administrators to translate the complexity of electoral laws into clear instructions. By this, election administration can adapt to the frequent changes in laws, reach better regulatory compliance, and address the barriers they meet during the delivery of the elections, like overtasking and lack of institutional memory. As a proof of the concept, we demonstrate the applicability of the proposed solution by modelling one voting channel available in the 2019 parliamentary elections in Estonia, advance voting. The article contributes to the theory on election administration and suggests how this solution could be used in practice: in the field of the electoral law and outside of it.

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“…NVT could include various elements of e-voting such as itself electronic voting machines, ballot scanning machines, internet or online voting applications or other electronic instruments, which could be used not only for exclusively political voting purposes (Grimm et al, 2007;OSCE/ODIHR, 2013). It is also important to note that evoting not necessarily means the use of distant voting mechanisms such as internetvoting platforms in Estonia, Switzerland, Canada or other countries (Goodman and Pammett, 2014;Serdült et al, 2015;Vinkel and Krimmer, 2016;Mendez and Serdült, 2017;Budd, Gabel and Goodman, 2019). In this regard, the system of e-voting developed in Kazakhstan requires a physical presence of the voter at polling stations, whereas the internet-voting does not as all votes are cast online.…”

Section: Theoretical Background 21 Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politicization of e-voting rejection: reflections from Kazakhstan

Kassen

2020

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Purpose Despite certain political, organizational, technological and socioeconomic benefits that e-voting brings, governments around the world are beginning one by one to denounce its further use in the electoral process. In this regard, the paper aims to analyze reasons that led to the discontinuation of e-voting, resorting to the case of Kazakhstan, a transitional post-soviet country, which actively used the technology in 2004-2011, as a poster child of the global trend, elaborating on key political, socioeconomic, organizational and technological risks that could be associated with the possible return of this innovation in future elections. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on the combination of context and policy analysis, as well as focus groups studies and semi-structured interviews. The context analysis was aimed to understand various political and socioeconomic benefits in adopting e-voting in Kazakhstan. The policy analysis was useful in identifying implementation strategies of the government in promoting e-voting. The focus groups were helpful in understanding the perspectives of various audiences on e-voting. The semi-structured interviews were carried among independent developers in regard to the potential software products that could be used to propose new solutions in the area, including by experimenting with various blockchain platforms. Findings Analyzing the lessons from Kazakhstan, one can conclude that e-voting was introduced and used for several years by authorities in this country for certain economic and organizational benefits, but later they had to reject it and return to traditional paper ballot due to lack of confidence from the non-governmental sector in the capacity of public sector to ensure the integrity of e-voting procedures. As a result, building trust and applying innovative approaches should be a priority for policymakers in the area, if they wish to return to this technology, especially in adopting new presumably more reliable solutions based on blockchain technologies. Research limitations/implications The primary data that was collected by the author from field studies were indexed, refined and presented in a special matrix in a separate section, which were interpreted in the discussion session. These data could be used by other scholars for further interpretation and analysis in their own studies, setting new research agendas and testing hypotheses. This is a single case study research, which is focused on the analysis of reasons that led to the denunciation of e-voting in Kazakhstan, which results could be extrapolated mostly to similar transitional post-totalitarian settings. Practical implications The study can be used to inform ways of how to improve the current e-voting platforms, especially in ensuring better security and transparency of the systems, which could be useful for developers who work on blockchain-driven solutions. Social implications The results of the case study research and expert opinions expressed by various software developers in the e-government areas, which were presented in the paper, could be used by both an academic community and practitioners in understanding better a wide range of political, organizational, economic, social and technological drivers, risks and new opportunities in promoting e-voting technology as a trust generating social phenomenon. Originality/value The paper proposes the first case study of reasons that led to the discontinuation of e-voting in the context of such a typical transitional, post-totalitarian and post-soviet society as Kazakhstan, providing new insights into a wide range of political, regulatory, socioeconomic, organizational and technological aspects of related policy decision-making and implementation strategies adopted by public institutions in this country.

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The How and Why to Internet Voting an Attempt to Explain E-Stonia

Cited by 17 publications

References 21 publications

Could Internet Voting Halt Declining Electoral Turnout? New Evidence That E‐Voting Is Habit Forming

Could Internet Voting Halt Declining Electoral Turnout? New Evidence That E‐Voting Is Habit Forming

From the Parliament to a Polling Station: How to Make Electoral Laws More Comprehensible to Election Administrators

Politicization of e-voting rejection: reflections from Kazakhstan

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