What Was the First Country to Adopt Online Voting?

The first country to adopt online voting nationwide was Estonia, which allowed citizens to submit their ballots over the Internet in 2005. This first online voting was used for municipal elections in which citizens voted for city councils and mayors, and it was an attempt to make voting more accessible. About 1% of the registered voters in Estonia used online voting in 2005, with no reported instances of hacking attempts or other flaws. The online voting was expanded for other types of elections in Estonia, and by the parliamentary elections of 2011, nearly 25% of the country's voters cast their ballots online. As of 2014, no other countries had adopted online voting nationwide, mainly because of security concerns.

More about online voting:

• It is estimated that about 15% of the people who vote online would not have otherwise voted.


• As of early 2014, there had been two countries that adopted online voting and then discontinued it: the Netherlands and Spain.


• In 2012, the US allowed online voting for people in New Jersey because of the conditions after Hurricane Sandy.