Affiliations: Department of Government and Justice Studies, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA. E-mail: lusta@appstate.edu
Abstract: Estonia is the only country in the world where all voters can vote online in
national elections.
In the 2015 election, 31% of voters did so. This paper discusses the
sociology and politics of online voting in Estonia. I first show that online
voting is a partisan project. Liberal, conservative, and social democratic
parties support online voting as a way of modernizing the electoral system,
while populist and agrarian parties oppose it as a tool for political
manipulation. I then show that online voting is demographically and
politically biased. Online voters are more urban, richer, and
better-educated than conventional voters and non-voters. The opposition
left-populist Center Party receives fewer votes online than the governing
market-liberal Reform Party. This is a bad thing for democracy and Estonia
should discontinue online voting.
Keywords: Online voting, elections, bias, democracy, Estonia