Estonia to become first in the world to let voters cast ballots by smartphone
Estonian voters will be able to cast an electronic ballot from a smartphone in the 2027 Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) elections, after the National Electoral Committee decided on 29 October to extend the country’s internet voting system from computers to iOS and Android devices. Estonia is the first country in the world to allow voting by phone.
The decision covers the parliamentary elections of 1–7 March 2027 and applies to the whole electorate. The State Electoral Office will build the voting application for 64-bit Windows and Ubuntu Linux, macOS, iOS and Android; a separate verification application, known as EH, will run on iOS and Android.
The change rests on two arguments the committee has made throughout: accessibility and resilience. Internet voting remains possible if a storm closes roads during an election week, if a drone alert makes leaving home inadvisable, or if the nearest polling station is dozens of kilometres away. A phone carries that option to the device voters already use for banking, prescriptions and tax returns.
“For me, the possibility of electronic voting is a matter of electoral accessibility and resilience in times of crisis,” said Ingrid Kullerkann, chair of the National Electoral Committee. “Everyone who wishes to vote should have the opportunity to do so.”
The same vote, counted the same way
Adding operating systems does not change the voting system underneath, according to the State Electoral Office: it widens the range of devices from which an electronic vote can be cast. The choice between a paper ballot, a computer and a phone stays with each voter, and every vote carries equal weight in the count.
Estonia has run internet voting since 2005, when it became the first country to offer it in a nationwide election. In the 2023 Riigikogu elections, 312,181 people voted online, 51.2% of those who took part.
The EH application lets a voter confirm that a vote reached the electronic ballot box and matches the choice made, up to three times within 15 minutes of casting it.
Why the decision came now
The Estonian Parliament created the legal basis for voting applications on smart devices in 2024. In 2025 the State Electoral Office and the Information System Authority ran a public test of the process, covering the casting, transmission and receipt of votes; it found the application reliable and drew positive feedback from users.
Alongside the test, the State Electoral Office commissioned an audit from KPMG on whether an application distributed through an app store can be shown to be the one the state published.
“The audit report confirmed that the authenticity of voting applications made available through app stores can be verified,” said Arne Koitmäe, head of the State Electoral Office.
How the safeguards work
Voters authenticate through Estonia’s national digital identity, using an ID card in a reader, or Mobile-ID or Smart-ID on the phone itself. Votes are securely protected and carry equal weight when counted. The system undergoes load, recovery and security testing every year, and the electoral committee and the State Electoral Office oversee its operation, with the audit covering the app-store link in the chain.
The committee reached its decision by majority, with most members finding the risks sufficiently mitigated. Kullerkann said her current understanding is that voting from a mobile device carries no greater risk than voting from a computer.
What voters will need in March 2027
The voting application will be published on valimised.ee for the i-voting period and distributed through Google Play and the Apple App Store. The verification application will be available from the app stores. The office advises using only the official application, keeping devices and security software up to date, and checking the vote where possible. Downloads and detailed guidance are published on valimised.ee.
The information in this article is based on the official Estonian elections website, Valimised.ee. ERR reported the committee’s decision.
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