Estonia votes to vote by phone

Citizens in Estonia can now vote with their cell phones.

Parliament in Estonia voted on Thursday in favor of a measure that would allow citizens to vote via mobile phone in the next Parliamentary election (in 2011), according to the Associated Press.

Estonia has a history of being tech-forward. In 2005, it became the first country to offer online voting for a national election--although only about 1 percent of the votes cast that year were made online. In that election, people were required to insert their nationally-mandated ID cards into readers attached to their computers so their identity could be verified.

In order to vote by phone, Estonians will have to get a special chip for their handsets from the SK Certification Centre, which issues ID certificates and provides the mobile payment and ticketing system used on publish transportation. The chip will verify the voter's identity and authorize them to vote.

I'm all for technology, especially technology that encourages people to vote and allows them to be spend less time in long lines waiting to do so. And certainly, some types of jobs, personal obligations, and physical limitations make it extremely difficult for voters to get to the polls on election day. So, for many people, this will be a big win. But given how long ballots tend to be here in California (and in San Francisco, in particular), I have to wonder if this convenience would be more trouble than it's worth for others. Personally, I'll think twice about subjecting my poor thumbs to voting by phone if this technology ever makes its way to the States.

[gsmiller88]

Ah, it still sucks that you have to go out and get something (a card reader or microchip) in order to be able to vote from the privacy of your own home. I guess it is good if you know in advance that you're not going to be able to vote on election day.

I'll never understand why they have to circulate new chips for secure phone use. Voiceprints should work fine.

[patch991]

Maybe because of the error rate percentage with voiceprints?

[tm_anon]

I think it's a great idea. The cost of the chip should be less than most these days pay just to get to the ballots, it would save a lot of time wasted standing in line and the idea that you could vote from the privacy of your own home, even from the privacy of your own bathroom if you wanted, would mean you'd be able to be comfortable while voting, able to think about each choice while making it. With that said, why not set up a system like unemployment currently has, but with more call-in numbers? When you call in, you enter your password, then answer a series of questions asked by an automated system. When it's done asking, it thanks you and hangs up. Your answers get recorded and that's it. There could even be a system backup with an email attached, sending your personal voting record to you to check and make sure your recorded answers are what you chose.

[dbargen]

Then again, how hard would it be for someone to steal your card/reader and or even your modified phone and cast the vote as they want to? I'm certain you could report your device as stolen and invalidate the vote, but when you've got to go to such lengths, you've created more hassle that it would be the old-school way.

If you're worried about being hassled, smart people keep their mouth shut- it's called a secret ballot for a reason. I don't know if Estonia's elections are as heated as ours have been lately, but with as much tax money is funneled into simply organizing and executing polls and we still have rampant fraud, teching the methods up is just going to throw good money after bad around here.

[tropp79]

The 'chip' is just an authentication module on your SIM card. We trust our state crypto.

gsmiller88:
Digital ID isn't just for voting, it's also good for banking, paying taxes, dealing with doctors, etc. You can pick up the card reader easily on your last visit to an actual brick-and-mortar bank;)

dbargen:
Stolen ID card is as useless as stolen phone with authentication chip in it, as you still need to enter your PIN to confirm your identity on every transaction.

[aka_M]

mobile id is just a registered sim card, there is no need to get an extra chip or reader for that. telecom providers issue these with the help from national authorities (SK) here in estonia. getting more and more commonplace nowadays. these can be used in online banking authentication, paying for public transport or parking, etc, etc.

if somebody steals your phone, the normal reaction will be to call 1777 (cerification centre) or your telecom and get your simcard blocked. there is also PIN present, asked before every transaction.

quite clear and clean system, the only drawback with mobile elections is that theoretically some database admin will become able to make connection between your id and your casted vote. by me, its not that big problem, but i do admit it has issues with the secret ballot theme.

[skeese2]

The vulnerabilities with voting by phone are in the systems used to record and count the votes and in the ability to connect a vote with a voter.

In the US, electronic voting machines (DREs) use programming that mis-recorded votes. In some instances voters saw the errors but were unable to correct them. The nature of the errors is usually such that mis-calibration, the usual excuse, is not possibly the problem. The computer code is proprietary so that 3rd parties cannot audit or verify its reliability. US DREs have been shown to be tamperable in undetectable ways. Even when Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT) are added to the machine, the hassles of correcting errors caught by voters often are enough for them to give up and move on.

Vote counting by computer systems has been another source of election tampering in recent elections. Use of man-in-the-middle strategy altered the Ohio result in 2004, where the results were sent from precincts to the Secretary of State's office via a computer in Chattanooga which changed the totals.

Voting by mail or by phone does address one method of election tampering: providing too few machines or ballots in precincts that are likely to vote in one way or another, especially in bad weather when people have to wait in line outside. In some areas (Santa Clara County in California, for example) a voter can verify online that her/his ballot was received and accepted, providing one small bit of confidence in the system.

Ballot secrecy is important to prevent people from selling their votes and from being coerced into voting a specific way. With proof of how someone voted, both of those methods of election tampering are possible.

Estonia may have addressed these problems in ways that the US can learn from. Or it may have a flawed system design that we can learn from also.