On Thursday, Adamová will meet with President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Lauri Hussar. Chairman of the Estonia-Czech Republic Parliamentary Friendship Group Aivar Sõerd and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu Marko Mihkelson will also participate in the meeting. Before the meeting, Adamová will sign the Riigikogu guest book and pose for an official photo with the President of the Riigikogu.
Within the framework of the Lennart Meri Conference on Thursday, the President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic will have a meeting with President of Estonia Alar Karis. On Friday, she will meet with Prime Minister Kaja Kallas at Stenbock House. She will also speak at the Lennart Meri Conference on Friday.
Adamová will be accompanied on the visit by Chairperson of the Committee on European Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies Ondřej Benešík.
On Thursday at 12.30, Markéta Pekarová Adamová will have a meeting with President of the Riigikogu Lauri Hussar at the Riigikogu. Journalists can record the arrival in the White Hall of the Riigikogu, the official photo and the signing of the guest book. We kindly ask the members of the press to be at the entrance hall of the Riigikogu (Lossi plats 1a) at 12.10. Contact: Merilin Kruuse, +372 510 6179, merilin.kruuse@riigikogu.ee
On Friday at 10.45 a.m. Markéta Pekarová Adamová will have a meeting with Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas. The media will have the possibility to record the arrival in the courtyard of Stenbock House, introducing of the delegations, official photo, signing the guest book and the first moments of the meeting. Journalists are asked to be at the entrance hall of Stenbock House (Rahukohtu 3) at 10.25 a.m. at the latest. Contact: Jevgenia Värä, Media Adviser to the Government, phone +372 525 4377, press@riik.ee
NordenBladet —On May 13, General Martin Herem, Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, welcomed Estonia’s President Alar Karis to the Spring Storm exercise today to introduce the head of state to the course and activities of the exercise. Together, they visited various participating units, gaining an overview of their training and …
NordenBladet —From May 10th to 11th, a training session was held at the Tapa military base for Artillery Battalion reservists who arrived for the Spring Storm exercise, preparing them for the deployment of HIMARS rocket launchers. “The current HIMARS unit from the USA stationed in Estonia supports the training with their …
Member of the Riigikogu Varro Vooglaid stated in his presentation that unfortunately the trust in the elections system in Estonia was very low, and tried to find an answer to the question why this was so. “First, it is to be expected that there will be mistrust when the difference between the results of paper voting and online voting is as large as we saw in last year’s elections. We all remember the situation, I will not go into the details, where first the results of the paper ballots showed one picture, and then came the results of the online voting, which completely changed the picture. If they changed the picture a little bit, if they were to re-play the distribution of parliamentary seats to some extent, that would be expected, they do not have to coincide exactly. But if there is a glaring difference between the results obtained by one electoral method and another, it is perfectly reasonable to ask what is going on here,” he said, and added that due to the extremely complicated regulation, it was also virtually impossible to contest the election results.
Vooglaid pointed out that the process and the results of voting were not verifiable and transparent. According to him, secrecy of voting is also not ensured in reality. “It is not possible to check in reality whether the program running in the server during the elections also corresponds to the source code published earlier. It is not an empty accusation, this is reality.”
Among other things, Vooglaid outlined the reasons why Finland did not adopt online voting in 2017. The first of them was technical. “There is no way to make elections secure if you have to establish connection with every voter’s computer because it would not be completely closed. The system simply works like that.” The second point was related to trust. “If you have a ballot paper and a pencil, it is always possible to go back to the ballot papers. If there should be any doubt about the election results, it is always possible to point to the actual ballot papers in the actual box. They can always be counted again, and sometimes have been counted again. In the case of a computer system, the votes go into a big melting pot. Also, the connection between the voter and the big melting pot has to be cut. So there is really no way of ensuring, in a way that the general public can understand, that no fraud has taken place.”
Freedom of information and digital rights activist Märt Põder said that as he had lost trust in online voting, he did not consider it possible to participate in voting with paper ballots either, and gave an overview of his election observer report of 2023. “The computer system where the private key of the elections was generated and where the votes were later counted originated from so to speak nowhere. Proceeding from the online voting manual, I as an observer asked for the opportunity to check that the system in which this key was generated and in which the votes were then counted was free of malware. I was not ensured this possibility, and I filed an election complaint. And that was the only one of my complaints that was partially satisfied. They said that yes, I should have an opportunity to observe something,” Põder said, and pointed out that he had got that possibility only in November 2023.
“It turned out that in the computer system where this key was generated, the elections manager themselves also did not know what they had installed there. The most important system, the system for the generation of the key and counting of votes, had to be an authentic Windows computer, downloaded from an official MSDN Windows repository, Microsoft repository, and following all good practices. And when we put that disk on the computer and started it, then it turned out that it also had ID card software installed, as well as a Notepad++ text editor, and a disk creation software, none of which is a Microsoft product and part of Windows, which means in regard to this computer and this disk that they had assembled it in the course of their day-to-day operations without logging the activity and without having any evidence of what was on the computer, and they also did not remember what they had installed on that disk. This disk was then used to generate the most important keys of the elections, which can be used to decrypt votes. And the person who prepared that computer had every opportunity to get that key from there, or to manipulate the vote counting, because they could install anything they wanted on that computer, on that disk,” Põder said, and described another four episodes that had aroused suspicions in him.
The next speech was by Member of the Riigikogu Martin Helme, who pointed out that the legitimacy of the government was no longer self-evident or credible for a large part of society. “After all, it would be possible to solve that problem quite easily if the issue was only, as we usually say, in communication. The sceptics, the non-believers should be demonstrated how real observability is ensured in the system, how the identified risks have been grounded, how verifiability has been guaranteed both during the elections and after the elections. An absolute majority of reasonable people would be able to admit with peace of mind that questions have been answered, criticisms have been overturned, they have been able to see with their own eyes that all is actually well.”
Helme noted that this had not been done, and a question arose: why. “Is it because it is not considered necessary? All normal people already believe that everything is well, and only the squinty-eyed fools wearing tin foil caps blabber about something, and there is no need to explain them anything anyway. Or could it be that it is not possible to prove that our online voting system works fairly and correctly, because it does not actually work fairly and correctly? I am afraid it is the latter case. The explanation that nearly 40 percent of the population consists of fools and conspiracy theorists cannot be taken very seriously,” he stated, and said that continuing on that path would lead the state and the people of Estonia to destruction. “It is time to take our hands off our ears and eyes and just give up on online elections before it’s too late,” he concluded.
Attorney-at-law Paul Keres underlined in his report that unlike in the case of paper ballot voting, it was extremely complicated for everyone to verify online voting, therefore the court had special importance, meaning and role. “And therefore, I am of the opinion that, in principle, elections can be considered legitimate when they have been conducted in a lawful and credible manner, and either there are no doubts about they way they were conducted or, if there are doubts, these doubts have been discussed and the court has decided that these doubts are not justified.”
Keres said that he had studied the case law with his colleagues from his law firm, and had found 68 judgments and rulings of the Supreme Court that had been made in cases relating to online voting in different years. “Of these 68 cases, 18 appeals were not reviewed. Nine were not reviewed because the complainant failed to file their appeal to the court on time or the court found that the complainant could not justify how the violation the complaint was about specifically infringed their rights. 49 appeals were denied. 12 were denied because there was no right to file complaint, 10 because the term to file a complaint had expired, and further seven were denied because the court considered the appeal to be too general. One appeal was granted, and the reason for this was that the Supreme Court agreed with the complainant that the National Electoral Committee itself had miscalculated the term for filing an appeal and therefore refused to review the complainant’s appeal. But I can say that it did not reach a substantive favourable solution for the complainant either.” Keres thinks that this statistics means that nearly half of the complaints or appeals have not received substantial attention. “In my opinion, this can be regarded as a serious problem, because actually rather serious doubts that deserve to be considered have been brought to the Supreme Court,” he said, and gave several examples.
Keres found that the procedure for elections should be reformed. Firstly, in his opinion, complaints and appeals that are filed not only to defend a person’s own subjective rights but also in defence of public interests should be allowed. Secondly, calculating the terms for filing complaints should be made simpler and the terms should be extended. Thirdly, Keres thinks that the procedure whereby election appeals are settled by the Supreme Court should be replaced by two-stage judicial proceedings: an administrative court with a direct appeal to the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court actually does not have the competence to ascertain facts and to assess facts, it is a court that gives legal assessments and final interpretations,” he stated.
During the debate, Aleksander Tšaplõgin (Centre Party), Andre Hanimägi (Social Democratic Party), Hendrik Johannes Terras (Estonia 200), Andres Sutt (Reform Party), Mario Kadastik (Reform Party), Kalle Grünthal and Ants Froch (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) took the floor.
The leaders of the national defence committees of nine countries will discuss the priorities in current defence and security policy, implementation of NATO regional defence plans and the possibilities for future support to Ukraine in Palanga, Lithuania. Member of the European Parliament and former Prime Minister of Lithuania Andrius Kubilius will speak about the price of insufficient support to Ukraine.
From Palanga, the delegation of national defence committees will travel to Klaipėda, where they will discuss the protection of critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea with the leaders of Lithuanian Navy. Ensuring energy independence, and the role of the state border guard service in the protection of critical infrastructure will be spoken about at the meeting with the representatives of KN Energies, the operator of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in Lithuania.
Leaders of the national defence committees of the parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Poland participate in the forum.
The National Defence Committee of the Riigikogu has held annual working meetings with the National Defence Committees of the Baltic States since 1998. From 2011, the representatives of the National Defence Committees of the of the Nordic Countries as well as Germany and Poland have also been taking part in these meetings.
NordenBladet —Next week marks the commencement of the combat phase of exercise Spring Storm, during which defending Estonia will be practiced using land, sea, and air force units in Western and Southern Estonia. “The exercise has started off very well. We have now been joined by over 12,000 fighters. It is …
NordenBladet —Today, on May 11th, the Estonian Defence Forces exercise Spring Storm 2024 reached a phase where firing exercises and manoeuvres at squad and platoon levels have been successfully completed, and preparations are underway for military training battles. The 2nd Infantry Brigade’s Kuperjanov Infantry Battalion is preparing for battles by fortifying …
NordenBladet —Today, representatives from Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers (CIOR) visited the military exercise Spring Storm. They were briefed on the exercise’s objectives, the tasks of the Estonian division, and reserve service in Estonia, and also met with reservists participating in Spring Storm. Reserve officers from 12 countries learned about Estonia’s …
NordenBladet —On May 11 and 12, as part of the Spring Storm exercise and the NATO international exercise Swift Response, UK Chinook and Wildcat helicopters will conduct low-altitude and night flights over Ämari and Western Estonia. The exercises will begin at 22:30 on May 11 and end at 00:30 on the …
Hussar pointed out that Estonia and Poland were like-minded countries that had excellent relations and worked very closely together, especially on security issues. “We have a common understanding of both Russia’s aggression and the need to help Ukraine, and we will continue to do all we can to support Ukraine,” he said.
At the meeting, Ukraine’s needs, and possible further steps to help Ukraine were discussed in more detail. Hussar spoke about a Bill that had passed its second reading in the Riigikogu yesterday. That Bill would allow the use of Russia’s assets that are frozen under international sanctions to compensate Ukraine for war damages. He also acknowledged the agreement reached by the EU diplomats to use the income from Russia’s frozen assets to aid Ukraine.
Hussar said that Ukraine needed long-term military, economic and political support, including assistance in reconstruction of the country. In particular, he emphasised the importance of diplomatic efforts, including parliamentary diplomacy, to keep the Allies and partners united.
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu Marko Mihkelson and Chairman of the Estonia-Poland Parliamentary Friendship Group Ants Frosch also participated in the meeting of Hussar and Sikorski.
Besides the meeting in the Riigikogu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland met with Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia Margus Tsahkna in Tallinn.
Photos (Erik Peinar / Chancellery of the Riigikogu)