Does internet voting in Estonia affect voter turnout?

Abstract

Internet voting has been an option to traditional voting in Estonia since 2005, which allows for a study to detect a potential effect of this new voting method on voter participation. This study aims to examine this effect by using a difference-in-difference model, where the treatment intensity in Estonia’s counties the period before the implementation is compared to the treatment intensity in the period after. There is no statistically significant effect found even if the use of internet voting has increased a lot during the period investigated. This result could possibly be explained by a social bias towards specific groups that use the new voting method which are the same groups that already vote.