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Estonia To Vote By Cell Phone

If you dream of using your cell phone to avoid going to a polling place for the next election, you may want to move to Estonia. Thanks to new legislation regarding its 2011 election, the country will be the first to vote by mobile phone.

Of course, the first question that leaps out is security. But the country allowed Internet voting in 2007 and officials said it was fine despite worries about hackers. Cell phone voting will have an added layer of security as well:

The mobile-voting system, which has already been tested, requires that voters obtain free, authorized chips for their phones, said Raul Kaidro, spokesman of the SK Certification Center, which issues personal ID cards in Estonia.

The chip will verify the voter's identity and authorize participation in the electronic voting system, he said.

The system and software have proven effective and reliable in an independent security audit, Kaidro said. He dismissed security concerns, claiming the system "is the most secure way to authenticate digital signatures."

This is definitely cool, but I'm still concerned about what happens when someone steals your physical phone on election day. With the rate of our voting technology in the United States I wouldn't hold your breath for this to come over, but at least we still get those spiffy "I Voted" stickers.

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