Technologically speaking, Estonia’s voting system is currently considered one of the most advanced in the world. However, authorities in the Baltic nation are looking for ways to improve its transparency and efficiency so that more voters can enjoy the convenience of casting their ballot automatically in the future.
With this in mind, Cybernetica and Smartmatic have created the Center of Excellence for Electronic Voting, which will focus on further developing the Internet voting platform that has been used in Estonia since 2005.
This Center of Excellence will help improve the current system and will pave the way for Estonia to begin sharing its automated voting experience with the rest of the world.
Academics and experts from various professional fields that helped develop Estonia’s Internet voting platform will be part of the team that turns this initiative into reality.
They will approach the study of the system from every possible perspective, including legal ramifications, system design, development, security, and encryption.
Despite the obvious advantages of Internet voting, such as convenience and reduced costs, there are other important matters to be addressed. These include how to increase participation among younger voters and issues related to voting for handicapped people.
During the last elections for the European parliament, participation in the electronic voting system rose to 31 percent compared with the 14.7 percent noted in past elections.
Estonia continues to be the only country in the world with a successful, legally binding Internet voting system, which no other country has managed to surpass in terms of participation.
Source: http://e-lected.blogspot.com/