June's European Parliament elections e-votes destroyed
The State Electoral Committee (VVK) on Monday destroyed the e-vote from last month's European Parliament election in Estonia. This was a routine procedure which follows after an election has been concluded.
The VVK is under electoral regulations required to preserve e-votes either one month after election day, or until all electoral complaints have been resolved, whichever comes second.
Once these conditions have been met, the e-votes are destroyed, for data protection reasons.
The deletion includes destroying personal data contained in the e-voting system as well as the digital key needed to open the e-vote.
The private key which facilitates the opening of votes is divided into portions and issued to members of the VVK and employees of the State Electoral Office (RVT).
In destroying this key, the over 150,000 e-votes cast at the European Parliament elections are rendered unreadable.
Additionally, the hard drive used to create the private key is physically destroyed.
The same principle applies to paper votes. The destruction of ballot sheets is the responsibility of the municipality in which a vote was cast.
Both e-votes and paper ballots are destroyed in order to ensure the perpetual confidentiality of votes cast.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
