(click on photo below to activate audio clip)
Tarvi Martens, chief architect of the Estonian remote Internet voting system
Tarvi Martens, project manager for Estonia's remote Internet voting project, talks about e-voting
Tarvi Martens was the project manager for the e-voting project which has allowed the Republic of Estonia to become the first country in the world to successfully carry out a national election that allowed citizens to vote remotely over the Internet, in a secure and convenient way.
Using Skype, Etopia Media Voting News spoke today with Mr. Martens to discuss the origins, operations, and potential of the Estonian-developed remote Internet voting system that was used in that country's national elections in the autumn of 2005.
You can listen to that half-hour audio interview, in its entirety, by clicking here.
details of e-stonian e-topian elections
You can access a PowerPoint presentation by Mr. Martens about the Estonian Internet voting system by clicking
here.
Read about the January, 2005, online voting trial in Tallinn, capital of Estonia, by clicking
here.
You can read more about Estonia's Internet-friendly environment by clicking
here.
universal digital identification capable of being used for digital signatures is the key to remote Internet voting, and more
Deployment of remote Internet voting in Estonia depends on the near-ubiquitous possession by every Estonian over the age of 15 of a digital identification document that allows him or her to create "digital signatures" online.
In a May 15, 2005, commentary published under the title of
Who will watch the watchers?, this reporter wrote:
"It might also be a good idea to load an encrypted and powerful "digital certificate" on each of these integrated ID cards, so that the cards could be used, in conjunction with a "public key infrastructure" (PKI), not just for the government to keep track of the people, but for the people to use in keeping track, in fact controlling, the policies and procedures that the government uses to keep track of the people and, in fact, to use in determining everything else it does, or doesn’t do, in the name of the people and on their behalf, under the rubric of "representative democracy."
The universal deployment of such a digital identification document, such as that already in place in Estonia, would make it possible to securely conduct remote Internet voting during elections for all levels of government, and would also make possible the institution of
"Smart Initiatives," thereby allowing for the online circulation of proposed new laws in an effective and responsible way.
combining universal digital identification with ubiquitous Internet access empowers the people economically, politically, culturally, and medically
Combining universal digital identification of citizens with universally-accessible and ubiquitous (wireless) broadband access could jump-start a renaissance of e-democracy, e-commerce, e-education, and e-medicine.
To watch and listen to this reporter advocating for a ubiquitous, universal deployment of broadband Internet access throughout the San Fernando Valley as a mayoral candidate during the 2002 Los Angeles Secession Election, click
here.
To read about, listen to, and watch more of this reporter's advocacy of digital democracy, click
here.
the latest in digital ID
To learn more about "smart passports," the latest iteration of digital identification documents, listen to an interview with Manuel Albers of Philips Semiconductor linked to from the October 5, 2005,
Smart Card World article entitled
"Manuel Albers, Identification Marketing Manager - Americas, Philips Semiconductors, talks about "smart passports".
To listen to Randy Vanderhoof, Executive Director, Smart Card Alliance, talking about the 5th Annual "Smart Cards in Government" conference, scheduled for April 18-20, 2006, in Arlington, Virginia, and related subjects, click
here.
bringing PKI-infrastructure to the State of California
Under the terms of the "Real ID Act," the federal government will be requiring the state governments to adopt a "common machine-readable technology" for their driver's licenses, if they want those licenses to be acceptable identification for federal purposes, such as boarding commercial aircraft.
One way to add value to these driver's licenses would be to require, under the federal guidelines now being prepared, that smart cards be used as the "common machine-readable technology" and that digital certificates, the underpinning of a national public key infrastructure (PKI) similar to that already in place in Estonia, be included on these smart cards.
With the State of California considering spending over $200 billion to upgrade that state's physical infrastructure, it might be sensible to consider using a small portion of that amount to endow every Californians with a PKI-enabling, personally-empowering, and digital certificate-containing smart card/state identification document (and, for those eligible, driver's license) compliant with the federal requirements under the Real ID Act.
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