DIFFER SEMINAR: Elections, Technology and Trust: Insights from Two Decades of Remote Internet Voting in Estonia

Abstract: Trust in elections underpins democratic legitimacy. Yet technology is reshaping elections–how people vote, how campaigns mobilize, the information environments citizens navigate, and the risks electoral systems confront. These transformations unfold amid mounting pressures on democracy and measurable global democratic decline.

This lecture examines the relationship between elections, technology, and trust through two decades of remote Internet voting in Estonia. Estonia is the only country where all voters, in all elections, can cast a ballot from any internet-connected computer anywhere in the world. In the most recent national elections, more votes were cast online than by paper ballot, and Internet voting is both widely used and broadly trusted. The lecture explains this apparent exceptionalism by asking: how is Internet voting organized and used in Estonia; how have the system and its uptake evolved over time; and what are the preconditions and consequences of large-scale deployment?

Analysis of usage patterns and survey data suggests that rapid adoption reflects the system’s embeddedness in a mature digital state and society. Internet voting has not increased turnout where voting was already highly accessible, nor has it entrenched digital divides: diffusion has been so extensive that socio-demographic traits no longer predict use. Attitudes toward Internet voting, however, remain responsive to cues from preferred political parties– though widespread adoption appears to reduce parties’ incentives to politicize the technology. The lecture concludes with lessons for countries considering the introduction or expansion of remote Internet voting.