(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Estonia is the first nation in the world that will allow voting via the Internet during its elections for the Parliament (Riigikogu). The voting will take place on 4 March 2007, but the electronic vote will be cast from 26 February at 9 AM until 28 February 8 PM.

The system was tested first in the limited local elections in October 2005, when almost 10 000 people voted via the Internet. The number of Internet voters for these elections is estimated to increase to 20-40 000 voters, out of the 940 000.

The system for Internet voting is based on the mandatory state-issued ID card, that includes an electronic chip. The ID card can be used by introducing it in a reader attached to a computer and using 2 passwords. The reader is commercially available for prices from 6.37 to 12.73 euros.

The Estonian people already use their ID cards to sign electronic documents or access online banking solutions. It is estimated that almost one million ID cards with electronic chips are in use, in a country with 1.3 million inhabitants.

The ballot will be scrutinized by an OSCE election assessment mission, that includes several Internet voting experts that will follow the e-voting process.

Surprisingly, the OSCE mission includes an expert from the Netherlands that might have links with SDU, the e-voting system of which was banned from the last Dutch election.

Estonians will be first to allow Internet votes in national election (22.02.2007)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/22/business/evote.php

Assessment of parliamentary elections in Estonia
http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/item_12_23355.html

Estonian National Electoral Committee
http://www.vvk.ee/engindex.html

Page for Electronic Voting for Estonian Parliamentary elections
http://www.valimised.ee/index_eng.html

Electronic voting in Estonia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Estonia

EDRI-gram: European e-voting machines cracked by Dutch group (11.10.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.19/e-voting