The Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) has submitted an appeal to Estonia’s National Electoral Committee challenging the committee’s decision to allow e-voting in the local elections this October despite a detected security risk that could affect 750,000 ID cards. According to EKRE parliamentary group chairman Martin Helme, the party finds that the Sept. 6 decision of the National Electoral Committee to still allow e-voting in the upcoming elections opens them up to vote manipulation and the influencing of election results, party spokespeople said. The party is seeking to have e-voting called off and the elections to be held with paper ballots exclusively.
“According to legal practice, infringement of rights does not have to have taken place; it is enough for the opportunity to exist,” Helme said in a press release. “When it comes to calling off e-voting, it is not important how likely it is that the security risk will be taken advantage of, as nobody will be able to forecast that. The fact is that nobody can ensure that manipulation will not take place, especially now, when information about the security risk with substantial explanations has spread across the world.”
Helme claimed that conservatives believe that the National Electoral Committee ignored the standpoint of the Information System Authority (RIA), an agency much more capable in the IT field, according to which the potential risk is great enough to warrant calling off e-voting. “For doubt to be cast on election results, it is enough for there simply to be the possibility that the security risk may be taken advantage of, and this sort of situation must be avoided at any cost,” he said.
Full Article: EKRE challenges electoral committee’s decision to allow e-voting | News | ERR.