The organizer of the election defines the election. At Estonian national elections, all people who have the right to vote are divided into one or several electoral districts. A voter who belongs to a specific electoral district can only choose between the candidates of that district.
To define an election, at least the following have to be defined:
- The unique identifiers of the election and the unique identifiers of the questions
- A complete list of electoral districts and polling divisions
- A list of people with the right to vote and the electoral districts to which they belong
- A list of candidates and the electoral districts to which they belong
One data set relating to the elections is integrated using a unique election identifier. Typically, people vote on one specific question at one election. However, it is possible to pose several questions at an election. All questions are separated using a unique identifier.
The length of identifiers is limited to 28 characters from the ASCII code table. The identifiers to be used for a specific election are specified each time in the election settings. The applications implementing the specification have to refuse to process data that identifies an election/question that is not included in the list of elections/questions set out for the application.
election-identifier := 1*28CHAR
question-identifier := 1*28CHARCandidates can be set up for elections only in specific electoral districts. Districts are used to give voters voting choices:
- Each voter belongs to a pre-determined district
- In all polling stations of one district, voters can only choose between the candidates of this district
At Estonian national elections, the following are distinguished between: local government elections, Riigikogu (Estonian parliament) elections, European Parliament elections, and referendums.
Local government elections are organized pursuant to the Local Government Council Election Act. The elections are organized at the local government level and each local government has its own voting result. The electoral districts are specified at the local government level pursuant to the rules specified in the election act.
Riigikogu elections are organized pursuant to the Riigikogu Election Act. The elections are organized at state level. The state is divided into 12 electoral districts. The voting result is determined for every district.
European Parliament elections are organized pursuant to the European Parliament Election Act. The elections are organized at state level and the voting result is the same for all local governments. The entire country is one electoral district.
Referendums are organized pursuant to the Referendum Act. The elections are organized at state level and the voting result is the same for all local governments. The entire country is one electoral district.
Various elections are not different on the basis of online voting data forms and procedures. Various district distributions are handled by the Elections Infosystem.
Candidates can be set up for elections only in a specific electoral district. Voters are divided between districts. The voter can only choose between the candidates running in their district.
In local government council elections, voting happens at the level of Estonian local governments (parishes, cities), and thus the classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK) is used in the online voting protocol suite to specify electoral districts and to show to which district voters and choices belong.
For example:
- The EHAK code for the Pirita city district in Tallinn City is 0596
- The EHAK code for Anija Parish is 0141.
As agreed, for state-level elections, the EHAK code for the district is 0.
At Riigikogu and European Parliament elections and referendums, a fictitious unit is set up in each electoral district for voters who is living abroad. The polling station number for those voters is 0 and the EHAK code is 0000.
ehak-code = 1*10DIGIT
ehak-district = ehak-code
no-district = 1*10DIGIT
district = ehak-district '.' no-district
station = ehak-station '.' no-station
station-legacy = ehak-station TAB no-station TAB district-legacyThe JSON schema of the electoral district list is defined as follows. The elements of the object region_dict are indexed with the element type ehak-code. The elements of the object district_dict are indexed with the element type district.
../../common/schema/ivxv.districts.schema
Example:
../../common/schema/ivxv.districts.schema.example
The list of electoral districts is received from the Election Infosystem and the JSON file is delivered to the online voting system as a digitally signed ASICE file.
The voter list includes the eligible voters’ names and personal identification codes, their district number. The voter list is uploaded to the system in the following format:
voter-personalcode = 11DIGIT
voter-name = 1*100UTF-8-CHAR
action = "lisamine" | "kustutamine"
adminunit-code = 1*4UTF-8-CHAR | "FOREIGN"
electoral-district = adminunit-code TAB no-district
reason = "" | "tõkend" | "valimisringkonna vahetus" | "muu"
version-no = "2"
list-type = "algne" | "muudatused"
voter = voter-personalcode TAB voter-name TAB action TAB electoral-district TAB reason LF
voter-list = version-no LF election-identifier LF list-type LF *voterThe legacy systems’ data structures include the field version number, whose length is limited to 2 characters. The value of the field is 2.
The voter list can either be original or amended. The original list only allows adding voters; the amended list also allows removing voters from the list. The voter entry can also include additional information – a reason to be in the specific amended list.
The data contain the following:
- The type (
list-type) "algne" means the original large list uploaded to the system before e-voting starts, and "muudatused" means the cumulative updates made later - The action (
action) "lisamine" means adding a new voter and "kustutamine" means removing. When a voter moves from one unit (administrative division or electoral district) to another, then one deleting entry is made in the amendments of the voter list to delete the voter from their previous unit, and one adding entry is made to add the voter to the voter list in their new unit. In the original list, all entries are the "lisamine" type - The electoral district (
electoral-district) identifies the administrative division and electoral district where the voter votes. Value is EHAK code for municipalities and for districts of Tallinn; or "0000" for voter who lives permanently in the foreign country. - The reason (
reason) is used in deleting entries to note the reason for the deletion. The reason field has to be empty for adding entries. If the reason istõkend, this means that from the moment the amendment is implemented, the voter with this personal identification code will not be allowed to vote anymore. If the reason is avalimisringkonna vahetus, it means that the voter is deleted from one electoral district, because they are added to another. In this case, a deleting entry has to be accompanied by an adding entry (this is checked). If the voter is removed from the list for some other reason (death, moving to a district that is not part of the elections), the reason has to bemuuor can be left empty. This field is informative.
The voter list is retrieved from the Population Register, which is run by the IT and Development Centre of the Ministry of the Interior. The legacy format text file comes with a signature file made by the Population Register by taking the SHA256 hash from the original voter list and signing that hash with a 2048-bit RSA key. The public key generated by the Population Register is made available to the online voting information system, and this key is used to check the integrity of the voter lists. The schema has been used since the 2015 Riigikogu elections.
The applied voter list at a certain point in time depends on the original list and the amendments made – what kind of amendments have been made and in which order. So as to identify this situation unambiguously, a list version has to be calculated.
NB! This version is not related to the version number in the list file that determines the list format version.
The version is calculated as follows:
v_0 = ""
v_n = base64(sha256(v_{n-1} | base64(sha256(nk_n))))where nk_n is the list loaded in n (counting starts from one, i.e. the original list is nk_1), v_n is the voter list version after it has been loaded, "" is an empty string and | is the string connection operation.
Records about the implemented list version are kept by the collector service and the processing application, which guarantee that the specific vote is counted in the right district.
The list of choices includes data on the candidates (at elections) or answers (at referendums). At elections, the list includes not only the candidate’s data but also the name of their political party.
There are two systemic differences at elections that are visible to voters during online voting:
- At referendums, voters do not choose between the candidates of political parties, but answer "yes" or "no" to the referendum question;
- At Riigikogu, local government and European Parliament elections, voters vote for one candidate, who may or may not belong to a political party/list.
The protocol suite encodes the voter’s possible choices in the district as a numerical value of up to 11 characters, which is encoded in the list of choices with the EHAK code of the district. Only the choices of their electoral district can be available to a voter. The voter application has to ensure this function, and the application calculating the voting result has to check it.
choice-no = 1*11DIGIT
district-choice = ehak-district '.' choice-noThe JSON schema of the list of choices has been defined as follows. The elements of the object district_dict are indexed with the district type element. The elements of the object list-choices are indexed with the district-choice type element.
../../common/schema/ivxv.choices.schema
Example:
../../common/schema/ivxv.choices.schema.example