The Estonian government has approved a law establishing Estonia as the first nation to permit voting using cellular phones. This will take place in the next parliamentary elections in the year 2011.

Estonians were permitted to vote using Internet ballots in the previous year’s parliamentary vote. The cellular voting system, which has already been proven to work, necessitates that voters obtain free, approved chips for their phones. The chip will ensure the voter’s personal identity and authenticate the  participation in the electronic voting system.

The system and software have been shown to be effective and reliable during an independent security audit. Although there are remaining security concerns, the developers of the mobile voting system claim it to be the most secure means of authenticating digital signatures.

The 2011 vote should  be the first of its kind, although  neighboring Sweden and Finland possess the software and technical capacity to perform similar “mobile elections”. Estonian officials stated that the online voting system in 2007 was secure in spite of concerns regarding hacker attacks, ID fraud and vote count misuse.