Local elections preliminary results expected after midnight Sunday
Preliminary results of this year's local elections in Estonia are expected around midnight tonight, election service chief Arne Koitmäe said.
The finalized e-vote results are expected a little earlier, at around 10 p.m., Koitmäe said. The e-vote itself closed at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Koitmäe noted that from a technical perspective, the e-vote, which opened with the start of the advance voting period last Monday, went smoothly.
"No errors occurred during the process. Voter activity was also quite high. Typically, most people vote in the mornings and again after returning home from work. Over 60 percent of votes have now been cast electronically," he said.
An e-vote may be re-cast as many times as a voter wants, during the advance voting period, and can be overridden by a vote on paper, either during the advance period or on polling day. This is to help avoid voter coercion, while the official count can only take place once polling is fully closed, to take into account voters overriding their e-vote on paper.
"Then, the first step is to remove duplicate votes, and during the count, we'll use the decryption key to open the votes and find out the election result. That should arrive at around ten o'clock," he explained. Previous years have shown that very few people replace their electronic vote with a paper one. "The number isn't large — it's somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000. However, there are quite a few who vote electronically multiple times," Koitmäe described.
All 356 polling stations across Estonia's 79 municipalities opened Sunday at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Voters may only vote on polling day within their own registered electoral district. "Within that district, the voter may freely choose any polling place," Koitmäe clarified.
"I would also remind everyone to bring an ID document with them to the polling station," he added.
Every voter district commission immediately begins the vote count as soon as polls closed.
"We'll probably have the preliminary final results by midnight," Koitmäe noted.
This time, polling stations were placed in shopping malls. Koitmäe was asked whether this affected voter turnout, given the advance voting period paper ballot turnout rose several percentage points compared with 2021's figure, while the e-vote fell slightly.
Koitmäe responded that this is difficult to assess, but that voting in shopping malls can be convenient. "People go there for other reasons as well. I think it definitely has a positive effect.
At the time of writing, 460,827 votes had been cast, giving a turnout of 45.9 percent. 188,621 of the votes had been cast on paper, and 272,206 were e-votes.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
