Today Finnish citizens are voting for the first time ever in a new election, in which council members to newly established counties are elected. These 21 new wellbeing services counties will take over the organisation of public healthcare, social welfare and rescue services.
One of the key worries is that the turnout will end up being alarmingly low, by some projections only about 40%. The fact that this is a completely new election, in the wake of an administration reform that has left many confused, is just one of the explanations. The sad truth is that voting activity in elections that deal with matters closest to the people have been spiraling downwards already for some time. In the municipal elections of 2021 the turnout was only 55%.
Internet voting, or e-voting, could potentially increase voting turnout. Obviously it would make voting less costly and more convenient for citizens. Considering all the other things we already take care of online, why couldn’t we also vote online?
There are, however, important challenges and pitfalls that first need to be solved. In a study commissioned and supervised by the European Parliament’s Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, the following challenges were identified:
Legal considerations. Any e-voting scheme has to be designed and evaluated in the light of the core principles of electoral heritage. From such a perspective, the legal analysis should focus on e-voting’s impact on the constitutional principles of electoral law: universal, equal, free, secret and direct suffrage.
Political considerations. Implementation of e-voting has political consequences and concerns. The entire procedure should be transparent, participatory, and involve all the relevant political actors and stakeholders in order to foster a broad political consensus around the introduction of the procedure.
Technological and security challenges. These risks are typically described along two dimensions, human-related and tech-related.
Some of the key human-related challenges involve lack of adequate technical skills among voters and election officials, the citizens assurance that their votes remain secret, the lack of transparency when voters cannot be sure whether their votes are correctly counted and stored, and the danger of interference by someone else in proximity to a voter.
Important tech-related challenges involve the possibility of system attack or breakdown, the possibility that voters’ personal computers are virus- or malware-infected, correct identification of voters, transparency of tabulation, preventive measures against multiple voting, and the complexity of a recount.
Social challenges. There might still exist social differences regarding access to internet and who is sufficiently technologically literate to be able to interact with an e-voting platform. A social analysis should also consider the impact of e-voting on the symbolic dimension of voting.
All of the above mentioned challenges are relevant, though it often feels like most of the attention is given to the tech and security related challenges of e-voting.
Considering that Finland is often ranked high in global studies regarding internet usage and innovation, I would argue that Finland is extremely well positioned to tackle the challenges involved in e-voting.
E-voting would not only be good for our democracy but it could also strengthen our image as a forerunner in digitalization and innovation on the global scene.