Forward-thinking Estonia engaging the youths by allowing voting by TXT MSG

Gary Cutlack Mobile phones, Science
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estonian-text-voting.jpgThe modernist regime of Estonia is EMBRACING the inexorable decline of future society and the eventual eradication of all vowels by allowing its citizens to vote via TXT MSG in the country’s 2011 general election.

It’s not quite as easy as simply texting in your choice of leader and an emoticon, though – all would-be text voters will need a special security-enabled SIM card to validate their identity and ensure there’s no funny business before vote day. So it still involves a fair bit of inconvenience and legwork, but is at least several times better than the current UK system of traipsing to your local primary school with a post card like it’s still the 1950s.

Estonia is already miles ahead of the UK and every other country in the world, thanks to an existing scheme which allowed people to vote in its parliamentary elections via the internet last year. Estonia also seems to beat us in having the most frequent elections.

(Via BGR – pic made with the ever-amusing TXT2Pic)

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Gary Cutlack
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2 comments

  • It of a shame, but the orignal AP story is rubbish. The Estonian law was was only for recognition of the use of the mobile ID system for voting in 2011 along with the use of smart chip ID cards already in use in the country. A user, who has to pay to change their sim card to mobile ID system SIM card, still has to connect to the Internet via a computer to use the ID confirmation security system/software in use in Estonia. It does not mean mobile voting or voting by SMS. It just an ID confirmation system the same as for ID cards in the country, nothing more.

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