Success in eVoting – Success in eDemocracy? The Estonian Paradox

Abstract

Estonia has acquired the reputation of a successful e-voting country, and perhaps justifiably so. It was the first country in the world to enable remote online voting in nationwide elections in 2005 and the share of e-voters has been on a rise ever since, now reaching one-third of all voters. Against this backdrop of a seemingly flourishing e-democracy, we set out to ask if the country’s success in e-voting also implies its success in e-democracy in a broader sense. In a qualitative case study, we compare Estonia’s experience in e-voting with the implementation and outcomes of three e-participation projects to demonstrate that considerable discrepancies exist between the take-up and perceived success of e-voting vis-à-vis other e-democracy instruments. In light of these findings the paper further discusses the factors that are likely to account for these differences and highlights the need to look beyond the success of online voting for a holistic evaluation of the state of e-democracy in a given country.

Full text

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Success in eVoting – Success in eDemocracy?
The Estonian Paradox
Maarja Toots, Tarmo Kalvet, Robert Krimmer
Tallinn University of Technology, Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tal-
linn, Estonia
maarja.toots | tarmo.kalvet | robert.krimmer@ttu.ee
Abstract. Estonia has acquired the reputation of a successful e-voting coun-
try, and perhaps justifiably so. It was the first country in the world to enable re-
mote online voting in nationwide elections in 2005 and the share of e-voters has
been on a rise ever since, now reaching one-third of all voters. Against this back-
drop of a seemingly flourishing e-democracy, we set out to ask if the country’s
success in e-voting also implies its success in e-democracy in a broader sense. In
a qualitative case study, we compare Estonia’s experience in e-voting with the
implementation and outcomes of three e-participation projects to demonstrate
that considerable discrepancies exist between the take-up and perceived success
of e-voting vis-à-vis other e-democracy instruments. In light of these findings the
paper further discusses the factors that are likely to account for these differences
and highlights the need to look beyond the success of online voting for a holistic
evaluation of the state of e-democracy in a given country.
Keywords: e-Democracy, e-Participation, e-Voting, Estonia, Case study
1 Introduction
Throughout time, democracy has continuously evolved and even undergone drastic
changes – from face-to-face, via territorial to transnational societies. Most recently, the
Internet fosters this transformation as it challenges the concept of state sovereignty and
need for representation. Arguably, e-democracy as a transnational, location independ-
ent way for citizens to interact with their state and be able to communicate and deliber-
ate in the way of a strong democracy, can be considered the concept for a third trans-
formation following Dahl [1]. Consequently, there is a need for e-democracy instru-
ments that help facilitate and shape such an e-democracy.
Estonia has been a pioneer in developing electronic public services and today all
public services include an e-service component. The eID card (the primary identifica-
tion document for citizens and permanent residents) has enabled digital signing of doc-
uments since 2002 and remote e-voting in nationwide elections since 2005. Internet
penetration has constantly increased – while in 2005, 58% of the population used the
Internet, today 88% are internet users [2]. Estonia undertook first steps to develop e-

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democracy in the early 2000s, creating the first e-participation platform in 2001 and
holding electronic elections since 2005. However, while these early efforts placed the
country among the top ten in the UN e-participation index from 2008 to 2012, Estonia
seems to have fallen behind since then, now ranking 22nd out of 193 [3].
While Estonia has acquired the reputation of a successful e-voting country, we set
out to ask if Estonia's success in e-voting also implies its success in e-democracy in a
broader sense. To answer this, we developed an evaluation framework for the case
study of e-democracy instruments in Estonia, by combining some of the success criteria
often employed in information systems, e-participation and e-democracy literature, fo-
cusing on user acceptance on the one hand and the aspect of democratic legitimacy on
the other. Thus, we are looking at the following criteria: 1) level of use; 2) user diver-
sity, 3) stakeholder satisfaction with the system and 4) impact on the political process.
While the first and the third category are typical IS success measures, the second and
fourth aim to incorporate the component of democratic legitimacy, which is considered
the overarching aim of e-democracy projects [4]. The perceived legitimacy and success
of a democratic exercise has been associated with not only engaging a sufficient number
of participants but also reaching a diverse group of participants [4-7]. Similarly, the
actual impact of e-democracy tools on political processes is considered a key measure
of their success [5, 6].
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 gives an overview of our research meth-
odology. Section 3 establishes the theoretical framework for the analysis based on two
relevant and complementary literature streams – public sector innovation generally and
e-participation literature more specifically. This is followed by a summary of the Esto-
nian e-voting system in section 4 and three major nationwide e-participation projects in
section 5. In section 6 we discuss the outcomes of the four e-democracy instruments in
relation to the factors that have affected their success, followed by a few concluding
remarks on the possible reasons why e-voting has worked more effectively in Estonia
than e-participation.
2 Methodology
The aim of this study is to explore the steps that Estonia has undertaken in order to
build e-democracy by analyzing the e-democracy instruments, such as TOM, Osale.ee,
People’s Assembly (Rahvakogu), most recently Rahvaalgatus.ee / Citizen OS
1
, as well
as e-voting, that have been implemented since the transformation of the public sector
based on the use of the Internet caught on in the early 2000s. In particular, we are in-
terested in identifying why e-voting works in Estonia and why e-participation does not.
The in-depth study of a contemporary phenomenon using multiple sources of evidence
in its real-life context is a typical application of case-study methodology. Also, it is an
area where there is traditionally – up to today – not enough empirical research [8] un-
dertaken in the IS field.
1
Rahvaalgatus.ee is only a very recent development in 2016. It was not further analyzed as
part of this study and is only mentioned here for completeness.

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Yin distinguishes between exploratory, descriptive and explanatory case study types
[9]. As we intend to gain new insight in how an e-democracy is (not) being built, the
exploratory approach is selected. Due to the unique situation Estonia is in – it is to date
the only country in the world that offers e-voting in all its elections without any re-
strictions to all eligible voters [10], it was abstained from choosing a comparative mul-
tiple case study setup and we focus solely on the Estonian case. For conducting the
actual case study research we follow Yin’s three phases (i) define and design; (ii) pre-
pare, collect; and (iii) analyze and conclude [9].
The data for compiling the case study were collected mainly through desk research
in 2015, including existing studies, policy papers, reports, press releases, articles in the
media, use statistics, legislative acts and government strategies.
2
3 Conceptual framework
Driven by the question why some e-democracy instruments, such as e-voting, seem to
work better than others, we focused on studying the factors that make for a successful
e-democracy tool. As e-democracy instruments can be viewed as a particular kind of
public sector innovation, we found some useful guidance in public sector innovation
research as well as e-participation and e-democracy literature.
3.1 Key success factors in public sector innovation
E-democracy instruments can generally be treated as public sector innovation con-
cerned with “the creation and implementation of new processes, products, services and
methods of delivery which result in significant improvements in outcomes efficiency,
effectiveness or quality” [12]. The emergence of literature on innovation genuinely at-
tributable to the public sector can be observed since around 2000, with a focus on in-
novations in public services and governance [e.g., 13, 14-16].
One of the most recent systematic accounts of public sector innovation is a literature
review by De Vries, Bekkers and Tummers [17] that maps influential factors in public
sector innovation at different levels and in different stages, from idea-generation to
adoption and diffusion. They distinguish key innovation drivers and barriers along four
2
For Osale.ee, an important information source was an evaluation report of the usage and
usability of Osale.ee published by the Government Office (manager of the system) in spring 2015
(quoted in this paper as [11]), which relied on focus group interviews with Osale’s managers and
key user groups (ministry officials, civil society organizations, interest groups, and individual
citizens). In addition, six semi-structured personal interviews were undertaken with key idea
champions, IS managers and active users in April and May 2015, several of whom had also been
involved in the creation of Osale’s predecessor TOM.
For e-voting the experience as part of the OSCE/ODIHR election related activities on Estonia
were of particular importance where one of the authors was able to participate. The opinions put
forward in this article are all of the author’s alone and should not be attributed to the
OSCE/ODIHR or any other institution.
For Rahvakogu we were grateful to have had access to a forthcoming study thereon.

4
main categories: (1) environmental level, including regulatory pressures, environmen-
tal pressures (media attention, political and public demand), participation in networks
and inter-organizational relationships; (2) organizational level: resources, leadership
styles, risk aversion, incentives/rewards, organizational structures, etc.; (3) characteris-
tics of the innovation itself: ease of use, relative advantage, compatibility, cost, trust-
worthiness, etc.; (4) characteristics of innovators, including employee autonomy, ten-
ure, mobility, knowledge and skills, creativity, commitment, etc. Some factors, such as
leadership, were found to be important in all stages of innovation. The European Com-
mission’s report “Powering European Public Sector Innovation” [18], perhaps the most
influential policy document on the topic, highlights similar barriers. Some of the key
impediments to success are related to scattered competences, lack of coordination, un-
favorable administrative and organizational culture, lack of resources, lack of leader-
ship, risk-aversion and failure-avoidance, lack of collaboration and limited knowledge
on how to apply and measure the outcomes of innovative processes.
Case studies of e-government innovation support these findings. Political will and
innovation acceptance at all levels of the organization have been found to be key drivers
of successful e-government innovations, while different stakeholder agendas, political
turbulence and resource issues act as barriers [19]. Similarly, a case study of the Esto-
nian e-government evolution identified leadership and public sector competencies,
availability of resources, legislative and regulatory support, and the existence of (stra-
tegic) IT infrastructure as important drivers. The study also emphasized the importance
of frequently underestimated factors: the competencies of the private sector, public-
private collaboration and the actual process of technology transfer, including support
mechanisms to public procurement of innovation [20].
3.2 Key success factors for e-democracy instruments
The success and failure of e-democracy instruments has been associated with a va-
riety of factors similar to those outline above for public sector innovation. A key suc-
cess/failure factor seems to be their level of integration into organizational procedures
and political processes [e.g., 5, 6, 21]. E-democracy methods should have a clear man-
date [6] and involve decision-makers from the outset [22]. Integration can be seen as a
key prerequisite for impact, which to date seems to be limited at best [5, 23]. Another
set of factors can be associated with organizational culture, attitudes and political sup-
port. In addition to organizational culture, broader cultural preconditions for e-democ-
racy include a developed civil society, social trust and an open political culture [6, 21].
The failure of many e-government initiatives has been attributed to overlooking the
demand side and citizen’s perspective [24]. Empirical evidence of e-participation tools
suggests that their take-up has thus far been globally low [25]. Neither have e-partici-
pation initiatives brought more people in decision-making, engaging just a narrow
“elite” of politically active citizens [7, 26, 27]. Variables explaining participation in-
clude prior interest in politics, internet skills, younger age and high level of education
[27], which is very similar to participation patterns in offline contexts [28]. The chal-
lenge of attracting users implies the need to reckon with their needs and capabilities by
engaging users in designing the e-participation tools [6]. Effective participation in the

5
democratic debate also presumes particular requirements to system design, such as in-
formation accessibility and competent moderation [5, 29]. Finally, the acceptance of
any ICT-based democracy tool tends to be determined by their perceived usefulness
and ease of use, the two central concepts in technology acceptance theories [30]. It is
assumed that user acceptance is higher for systems that require less effort, while demon-
strating clear benefits for the user.
Either way, the development of an electronic democracy with transnational character
[31] needs the further development of e-enabled instruments of democracy, i.e., e-ini-
tiatives, e-referenda and of course also e-voting instruments [32]. E-voting takes a spe-
cial role within this set of e-democracy instruments. Not only is it one of the most vis-
ible e-government projects which sometimes receives all the attention of the public, it
also is often one of the most discussed and debated [33].
The success of e-voting is often linked with an incremental, step by step, implemen-
tation [34], careful consideration of stakeholders’ interests [35], as well as a holistic,
interdisciplinary, approach [36]. It can be noted that e-voting is more focused on tech-
nological issues than other e-democracy instruments, partly due to the inherent paradox
between unequivocal identification of voters on the one side and must not being able to
establish a link between the vote and the voter, essentially keeping the vote secret and
hiding the identity of the voter (preserving anonymity) [37]. Due to the fact that to date
most e-voting undertakings do not follow classical experimental setups [38] and are
embedded in their national context [39] it is hard to draw comparative conclusions and
provide learning to others. We therefore decided to change the approach and conduct
an in-depth analysis of a country’s efforts around all kind of e-democracy instruments.
4 The case of e-voting in Estonia
The Estonian efforts around e-voting started in 2001 with a plan to introduce e-vot-
ing, allowing to cast votes remotely via the Internet (often also called “Internet voting”)
already for the Estonian 2003 parliamentary elections. Following the e-government
logic this seemed like the logical next step after e-tax reporting, e-banking and a paper-
less cabinet meeting of the government’s ministers [40]. It took two more years until e-
voting become a reality, due to discussion around its constitutionality. With the first
ever, countrywide, unrestricted, remote e-voting channel offered in legally binding
elections, the 2005 municipal elections, Estonia manifested its narrative of being an e-
country. To date it remains the only country with such a universal approach to e-voting.
Several articles have been written about the Internet voting experience in Estonia
[41-44], but probably the most comprehensive overview can be found in [45]. Here
Vinkel classified the development of Estonian e-voting in three stages: (i) setup period
(2002-2005), (ii) growth period (2005-2011), (iii) maturity period (from 2011). In the
first period the main technological decisions were taken (usage of the card; double-
envelope algorithm). In the second phase, a continuous exponential increase in usage
was experienced (see Fig. 1), while the actual application was not changed in function-
ality, design nor usability. The ongoing third developmental phase was started by a

6
security incident during the 2011 Riigikogu elections
3
. It was followed by an electoral
reform with the introduction of individual verifiability as its main result [47].
Figure 1: Share of E-voters out of Voters in Per Cent [48]
5 Estonian e-participation projects
5.1 TOM
Estonia’s first national-level e-participation project TOM or Täna Otsustan Mina
(meaning “Today I Decide”) was launched at the initiative of Prime Minister Mart Laar
and his IT advisor as early as in 2001, possibly making it one of the first of its kind in
the world. The online platform, administered by the Government Office, allowed citi-
zens to make proposals for new legislation and policies and discuss and vote upon them.
More popular ideas would be forwarded to relevant government officials, who then
would have one month to post a formal response.
Despite a relatively lively public interest in TOM, the project soon encountered chal-
lenges, such as a limited number of active users, low quality of ideas, limited impact of
citizens’ proposals and the prevalence of formalistic responses by officials over an open
attitude to dialogue [49]. By TOM’s third birthday in 2004, e-democracy enthusiasts
had declared it a failure [50]. According to interviews with implementers and idea
champions of the project, TOM seemed to be ahead of its time. Government institutions
lacked an understanding of how to integrate TOM-generated ideas into their work pro-
cess and citizens lacked the knowledge and skills to formulate their ideas in sufficient
quality and formats that officials could work with. According to TOM’s administrator,
there was a gap in the regulatory, strategic and political context – as government-wide
discussions on citizen engagement policies only started around 2004-2005, the ground
for e-participation was not yet fertile [51].
3
A student managed to program a Trojan horse that would cast a different vote than the one
intended by the voter. He consequently filed a complaint to the election management body but
this was eventually turned down. [46]

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Citizens were equally dissatisfied. In a survey involving 25 active users, a number
of ideas for improvement were voiced, such as the need for more active promotion of
the project, improved information accessibility (e.g. systematizing citizens’ ideas ac-
cording to topics), design updates, involvement of experts and moderators to increase
the quality of debate, and integration with other government information systems [52].
However, instead of re-designing TOM, the government decided to build a new e-par-
ticipation tool (later named Osale.ee) and migrate TOM to the new platform. By that
time, TOM had more than 7,000 registered users, who had generated 1187 ideas in total
[53] out of which no more than 1% were actually implemented by the government [49].
5.2 Osale.ee
The idea for developing Osale.ee (www.osale.ee) emerged around 2004-2005 during
the process of designing a government-wide policy for citizen engagement. The process
brought together government officials and civil society activists and led to ideas for a
new e-participation tool, which would address the shortcomings of TOM by better in-
tegration into formal rule-making processes [51, 54]. Consequently, the Government
Office took the decision to develop a new e-participation portal which would enable
officials to engage civil society in legislative drafting. The goal of the portal was to
enhance the transparency, openness, quality and legitimacy of decision-making [55].
Osale.ee was launched in 2007 as a platform for public consultations on legislative
drafts. A year later, the system was upgraded with the functionality of an “improved
TOM”, which allowed citizens to propose ideas to the government, and gather com-
ments and votes in support. Despite all the criticism of TOM, its functionality was pre-
served in Osale.ee because of TOM’s high symbolic value, pressure from civil society
and the wish to signal that the government had not lost interest in citizens’ ideas [51].
Osale.ee also included a third function – a search engine of government documents. It
thus aimed to enable all three types of government-citizen interaction: information,
consultation and active participation [56].
Osale.ee intended to engage three kinds of users: officials of government institutions
(mostly of the executive branch), individual citizens and their institutionalized repre-
sentatives. In practice, however, the tool soon became criticized for failing to attract
users and lack of impact [57, 61]. The portal is still operational today but largely con-
sidered failed in terms of adoption and outcomes [11].
5.3 People’s Assembly
In 2013 Estonia experimented with a post-Parliamentary democracy tool, the Peo-
ple’s Assembly (Rahvakogu). The initiative came from the President of Estonia and
several civil society organizations as a response to a public trust crisis. It consisted of
an online platform for crowdsourcing proposals to amend Estonia’s electoral laws, po-
litical party law, and other issues related to the future of democracy in Estonia. After
three weeks of online crowdsourcing, the ideas were debated during a one-day ‘delib-

8
eration day’ involving a stratified random sample of members of the public to propor-
tionally represent different regions, age groups and gender [58]. The process resulted
in 15 proposals that were presented to the parliament.
A year later, three proposals out of the 15 became laws and several more have by
now been partly implemented or re-defined as commitments in the government coali-
tion program. However, as the organizers admitted, the exercise failed to achieve its
main goal – to increase trust in institutions of representative democracy [59].
6 Discussion
The four e-democracy instruments that have been implemented in Estonia – e-voting,
TOM, Osale.ee and People’s Assembly – have met mixed success. E-voting, despite
some initial barriers, has by now been adopted by a considerable share of voters (close
to 32% in the latest elections) and is generally regarded as an effective tool [48]. At the
same time, the e-participation projects have only been able to engage a narrow group
of active users and are largely perceived as lacking impact. Although TOM had close
to 7,000 registered users, only 9% of them actually posted an idea [49]. Osale.ee, the
only ongoing e-participation project, has been reported to have no more than 5-10 com-
mitted active users [11]. While the People’s Assembly online platform succeeded in
attracting a high number of proposals and comments (close to 4,800) was still heavily
dominated by a homogenous user group – middle-aged well-educated ethnic Estonian
men [59]. It is therefore fair to conclude that none of the e-participation projects has
been particularly successful in enhancing e-democracy in the sense of fostering an ac-
tive engagement of all parts of society in shaping public decisions.
Based on theoretical and empirical literature, e-democracy innovations are chal-
lenged by various barriers. These include a lack of administrative and political cham-
pioning, poor integration into organizational procedures and broader political pro-
cesses, lack of easily demonstrable impact, unfavorable cultural context, hostile atti-
tudes to citizen engagement, and the difficulty of matching different expectations and
capabilities in designing systems intended to engage diverse user groups. Therefore,
the success of e-voting compared to e-participation projects could at least partly be
associated with its inherently high integration into policy processes and administrative
routines, high political interest and support to the instrument, its immediate and easily
demonstrable impact on the constitution of elected bodies, clear mandate and a clear
procedure for translating input to outcomes.
E-voting has demonstrated clear benefits related to convenience to users – if voting
on paper would take more than half an hour, voters are more likely to prefer the elec-
tronic channel over the traditional one [48, 60]. Looking more closely at the develop-
ment path of e-voting, one can identify that the service has been characterized by a
relative stability as the application remained relatively unchanged within the first six
years of operation – and this change only happened due to external pressure (an attack)
[45]. Initially the take-up of e-voting was relatively low (only 2% of the voters chose
the electronic channel in the 2005 municipal elections first offering e-voting) and fo-
cused on early adopters of the ID card, similar to e-banking. There was thus in fact a

9
high barrier of learning to be overcome. Once this barrier was mastered, the immediate
return was incurred: convenience. With e-voting people potentially save time, while
with other e-democracy instruments the actual impact has often not been clearly visible.
Unlike e-voting, Estonian e-participation projects have never achieved true integra-
tion with existing political processes and their mandate has remained unclear. In the
case of TOM and Osale.ee, government institutions do not seem to have found a way
to accommodate unsolicited ideas from citizens into their daily routines. Although
Osale.ee aimed to fix the shortcomings of TOM by better integration into the policy-
making process, it largely seems to have failed in this respect. Part of the problem has
been the ambiguity of the concept of public consultations, which is undefined in legis-
lation [11, 62]. Hence, the extent to which the government should take citizens’ input
into account has remained unclear. Similarly, as the Parliament’s policy-making routine
included no procedures for working with crowdsourced proposals, the Parliament was
generally reluctant to discuss the ideas put forward by the People’s Assembly [59].
The latter also has to do with political interest, which seems to have been relatively
low for all e-democracy instruments but e-voting. As the Prime Minister’s project,
TOM clearly had political backing at the highest level, albeit limited to the Prime Min-
ister’s office, while its successor Osale.ee never saw any political champions [54, 62].
Political interest was more mixed for People’s Assembly – although the process was
formally initiated by the President, it did not meet similar interest on the part of the
Parliament, the group of politicians whose support would have been key to the project’s
impact.
Due to loose integration and low political interest, all three e-participation projects
have lacked the expected impact. The actual implementation of citizens’ ideas proposed
through TOM and Osale.ee has remained marginal [49]. Public consultations on
Osale.ee have not yielded better outcomes – both government officials and interest
groups criticize the platform for low usefulness [11]. The People’s Assembly, despite
several positive effects, did not bring the government closer to citizens and failed to
stimulate a fundamental reform of political institutions it originally intended to [59].
Therefore, considering the effort that is required from citizens, administrators and pol-
iticians to engage in a complex political dialogue and the absence of immediate benefits
such as time savings, it might well be argued that it is inherently more difficult for e-
participation projects to repeat the success story of e-voting.
7 Conclusions
Estonia’s success in e-voting does not mean the country has been successful in pro-
moting and enabling e-democracy in general. Somewhat paradoxically, the country that
has been a champion of e-government and a pioneer in e-voting has not quite been a
success story in e-participation and has consequently failed to develop a full-fledged e-
democracy as some had initially hoped.

10
However, it is not only that politicians lack out on supporting this transformation
(which could be due to the fear of losing power; compare [63]) but also citizens them-
selves. Contrary to the hopes of many early Internet enthusiasts, citizens do not appear
to be particularly interested in taking advantage of all the opportunities for direct access
to decision-making that contemporary technologies can offer, especially if the benefits
are not immediately evident. As it seems, the third transformation of democracy to-
wards a fully developed e-democracy still has to happen and not even Estonia can help
out with this one – for now.
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the European Commission (Open-
GovIntelligence H2020 grant 693849), Estonian Research Council (grants IUT19-13,
PUT773) and Tallinn University of Technology Project B42.
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