Estonia’s electronic voting and other government tech innovations don’t get enough attention, especially in the United States. From Billy Perrigo, a Reporter for TIME:
On Sunday, when citizens of the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia go out to vote for their next parliament, many of their compatriots will have already voted — from the comfort of their own homes.
That’s because Estonia is the world leader in electronic voting. Since 2005, Estonians have been able to cast their ballots from a computer with an Internet connection anywhere in the world. The government says 30% of Estonia’s population of 1.3 million people use the system, and that its simplicity helps save the country a total of 11,000 working days each election year.
Things are different in the U.S., where voting machines in polling stations are common but voting online is not available. In recent years, U.S. elections have thrown up stories of voter machine meltdown, citizens unable to vote because of technical difficulties, and even the devices casting votes for the wrong candidate because of malfunction or malfeasance.
Find the full article at TIME. For more information, last year Taavi Kotka, at the time the Estonian government’s chief information officer, spoke to an audience for about 20 minutes during a presentation at a WIRED UK Security conference. Take a look:
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