The lot is to be conducted publicly from 10.00 a.m. at the Tallinn city government offices at Vabaduse väljak 7.

The candidate numbers appear on paper and online ballots, alongside their name and party.

The process avoids chains of numbers, which would happen if parties were issued their candidate numbers in order, and avoids a potential implication of hierarchy if one party's candidates all had higher – or rather, lower – numbers, than another's.

There is no "number one" candidate; the lowest number is 101. With 1,192 candidates running in Tallinn at October's election, the highest number will be 1,293.

The eight parties running in Tallinn are joined by two electoral alliances – groups of candidates who often have a platform specific to the locality.

Candidate numbers for the parties and electoral alliances are issued at random first.

After this process is finished, the 10 remaining, unused candidate numbers are allocated at random to the 10 independent candidates running in Tallinn.

The breakdown by numbers of candidates per party, electoral alliance or who are running as independents is:

Center Party – 338 candidates.

Isamaa – 265 candidates.

Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) – 121 candidates.

Social Democratic Party (SDE) – 115 candidates.

Eesti 200 – 104 candidates.

Reform Party – 98 candidates.

Estonian Greens – 94 candidates.

Narodni Sojuz electoral alliance – 24 candidates.

Vaba Eesti electoral alliance – 19 candidates.

Independents – 10 candidates.

TULE – four candidates.

Tallinn is sub-divided into eight districts and residents can only vote in the district they are registered in (multiple polling stations will be set up on election day).

The ordered list system means votes for candidates high up on a list – in practice parties put their highest-profile candidates in these spots – will be redistributed once enough votes are gained to reach the threshold for a seat. This means that candidates who would not get a seat in their own right can in fact do so.

Registration nationwide has to be finalized by September 12, while the State Electoral Committee will publish the lists of all candidates running across the country on its website, any time from September 15.

Election day is October 17, preceded by a six-day advance voting period.

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