The OSCE prepared its analysis following the March 2023 Riigikogu elections.

A 16-point list of recommendations (link in Estonian) by OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) begins by stating: "To raise further and to maintain confidence in e-voting, electoral organizers should address proactively all issues raised by those election stakeholders who express a lack of confidence in the results of online voting."

The ODIHR also calls for a quality assurance process which would include a thorough testing of the entire e-voting system before its deployment.

Other recommendations include issuing full, accurate and up-to-date documentation on tech and processes used in the e-voting system, and full explanation of the procedure and schedule for announcing the results ahead of election day.

"As previously suggested, electoral organizers should consider methods to achieve end-to-end verification," the ODIHR wrote.

"To improve monitoring mechanisms, electoral organizers should address deficiencies in individual checking systems and ensure that all critical stages of determining e-voting results can be audited," the ODIHR went on.

Nonetheless, overall last year's electoral process and including its e-voting component was organized efficiently and in accordance with the law, the ODIHR reported, and the above concerns are "minor technical deficiencies."

The report also called for better regulation of political party donation methodologies, including placing a ceiling on individual donations and campaign spend, more transparent campaign advertising and the regulation of third-party campaigning by some organizations.

Increasing the competence and powers of the Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee (ERJK), the body tasked with supervising the financing of political parties and campaigns, should also be looked at, the ODIHR said.

The report also found that, while there were "also cases of some politicians using divisive rhetoric," on the whole, ethnic minorities' voting rights, which in Estonian Riigikogu elections overwhelmingly refers to the Russian-speaking minority, were guaranteed and equitable.

The naturalization of residents with "undetermined" citizenship should be promoted and these people should be allowed to join political parties, the report found.

An OSCE representative had visited Estonia this week to showcase the report and to discuss ways of implementing recommendations.

Commenting on the recommendation ERJK vice-chair Kaarel Tarand conceded that in the context of societal development and changes in political processes, the rules for participation in politics should be supplemented and updated from time to time.

To that end, amendments to the Political Parties Act, which would address at least some of the problems outlined above, have been in the process for years, but have not made much progress, Tarand added.

This seemed as much a case of parties' feathering their own nests as anything else.

"Political parties have no interest in dealing with these issues; the political will is just not there," Tarand went on.

ERJK chair Liisa Oviir said that overall that she considers the outcome of the ODIHR's mission to Estonia and ensuing evaluation of the election process had been positive, and had given local stakeholders an outlet to address their concerns

At the March 5, 2023 Riigikogu elections, e-voter turnout set a new record at 313,000 e-votes cast, much more than half the approximately 457,000 total number of votes.

e-voting was held in the advance voting period which ran Monday, February 27 to Saturday, March 4, and not on the day. Voters could cast and re-cast an e-vote as often as they liked, a measure aimed at staving off voter coercion or inducement, and could further override their e-vote by voting on paper on polling day, Sunday. A little over 1,300 people did indeed do so.

One change in 2023 as compared with the previous Riigikogu election in 2019 was that in the latter case, the e-vote result was announced separately from the paper ballot, and ahead of it, within an hour of polls closing at 8 p.m.

Last year, the opposite was almost the case; the bulk of the 405 electoral districts had reported their paper ballot results by the time the e-vote was added into the overall total, at around 11 p.m.

The main party to criticize the use of e-voting is the opposition Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), which in 2023 appealed the vote at the Supreme Court, citing technical inconsistencies and errors which it said rendered the general election overall to have been illegal.

Other, broader criticisms of e-voting include that it excludes older people who, it is argued, are less tech-aware and so have fewer voting options available than younger voters.

Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Vienna, OSCE has 57 member states in Europe, North America, and Asia and in addition to ensuring free and fair elections, is tasked with arms control, the promotion of human rights and press freedoms.

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