Report EOM Estonia

REPORT

Election Observation Mission

Estonia

Parliamentary Elections, 1 March 2015

Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. AEGEE and the Election Observation Project 1.2. EOM Estonia - what’s interesting here? 1.3. The Political and Electoral System of Estonia

2. Observation Report

2.1. Team 1: Viktor Bezhenar, Lucrezia Aresi 2.1. Team 2: Tamara Beresh, Perçin İmrek 2.3. Team 3: Dennis Hesling, Robert Netzband 2.4. Team 4: Anna Pavani, Lev Murynets 2.5. Team 5: Jana Bedanova, Ruben Gerardus Wilhelmus Wissing 2.6. Team 6: Cono Giardullo, Anna Maria Walraven 2.7. Team 7: Milan Thies, Shavit Ben-Arie 2.8. Team 8: Michele Bezzi, Annekathrin Vietense 2.9. Team 9: Miha Ilc, Diego Antončić 2.10. Team 10: Maud ter Hark, Antonella Luisi

3. Conclusion

4. Credits

5. Appendix A – Personal Impressions

3.1 “An “Observer” among the voters” by Cono Giardullo 3.2 “Estonia EOM – how it was to me?” by Percin Imrek 3.3 “My surprises and conclusions” by Jana Bedanova 3.4 “Estonian Contrasts” by Milat Thies 3.5 “My Experiences during the Project “Election Observation” in Estonia” by Anne Vietense 3.6 “A short footnote about “trust”” by Anna Pavani 3.7 “Beyond language’s barriers: the PEC members and their helpfulness” by Antonella Luisi 3.8 “Discovering Europe” by Robert Netzband

6. Appendix B – External Publications about EOM Estonia

1. Introduction

1.1 AEGEE and the Election Observation Project The AEGEE Election Observation Project is an initiative of a group of young Europeans, students of different academic disciplines from different European countries, members of AEGEE, seeing themselves as active European citizens. The project’s core activity consists in sending young Europeans on self-organised Election Observation Missions (in the following: EOMs) to major European elections.

In our vision, democracy is a very important achievement of our civilisation. However, being part of this changing world, we realise it is fragile and should never be taken for granted. Our ancestors fought to establish democracy and in order for it to persist, it requires an active contribution from all members of society. We, the young generation of today, are part of that society, and it is our wish and our obligation to assume responsibility for our society according to our possibilities.

With this project we pursue two main objectives. First of all, by sending young people as officially accredited election observers to major European elections, we look to make our own modest contribution to the transparency (and, hopefully, the legitimacy) of these elections. And second of all, we believe that participation in election observation activities is an invaluable experience of social, intercultural, and political education for every single one of us, creating strong bonds of European solidarity, deepening our understanding for our European neighbours, and strengthening our appreciation for our European values. At the same time, what is not our ambition is to draw any generalising conclusions about the conduct of the elections we observe; for these matters we, like many others, rely on the work of the OSCE.

EOM Estonia Team in Tallinn

Till date we have conducted six Election Observation Missions (in the following: EOMs), involving 111 young observers from a total of 23 different countries as election observers. Currently, the project is in its pilot stage, collecting experience and testing methods, aiming to continuously improve its professional standards in election observation in the course of 2015. The present report documents our experiences from the project’s sixth EOM of 26 February to 2 March, 2015 to the parliamentary elections in Estonia of 1 March. We hope you enjoy reading, and we are looking forward to hearing from you in case our project has sparked your interest! Election Observation Project

1.2 EOM Estonia – what is interesting there?

1. E-voting system

Estonia is the only country in the world that relies on Internet voting in a significant way for legally-binding national elections. The Estonian e-voting system has been under development since 2002 with the final pilot held at the end of 2004. In 2005, the system was used for the first time for local government council elections and in 2007, for the first time in the world, it was possible in Estonia to vote online for parliamentary elections. The e-voting system is gaining popularity. From the percentage of 15% in 2009 for the European Parliament elections, to the 24.3% during the parliamentary elections in March 2011. Electronic voting is meant to supplement, not to replace, the traditional methods of voting. The idea is to give voters the possibility to vote from the location of their choice, without the necessity of going to the polling station. Therefore remote voting is used. Electronic voting takes place during advance polls (tenth to fourth day before election day) and government-issued ID-cards are used for voter identification. Currently, there is an ongoing debate about

the security of this kind of system. 2. Russian minority The population of Russians in Estonia is estimated at around 350,000. Most Russians live in Estonia's capital city Tallinn and the major northeastern cities of Narva and Kohtla-Järve. Some areas in eastern Estonia near Lake Peipus have a centuries-long history of settlement by Russians, including the Old Believers' communities. The Baltic states are commonly considered a single entity due to their small size and

similar recent history, but their traditional cultures, their experiences during the Soviet occupation, as well as their subsequent development after their independence was restored in 1991, have been very different. Estonia, in terms of geography, culture, and linguistics, belongs more to northern rather than eastern Europe. One of the most important factors that shape national identity is language. The Estonian language belongs to the Finno-Ugric grouping of the Uralic language family, which is completely separate from the Indo-European languages, a fact that brings Estonians closer to Finland than to their southern neighbors whose languages are related, albeit distantly, to Russian. Today, parts of the Russian community in Estonia remain quite isolated because many Russians have stronger links to their historic homeland than to their country of permanent residence. Treatment of ethnic Russian non-citizens continues to be a major issue domestically and bilaterally with the Russian Federation. Russians allege occupational, salary and housing discrimination because of Estonian language requirements. Those who desire language instruction confront problems stemming from an insufficient number of qualified teachers, lack of funds, poor educational infrastructure and an examination process which some allege is arbitrary.

Central Square of Tallinn

According to official data published by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs there are 34 newspapers and 20 magazines published in the Russian language in Estonia. Two of the country's national TV channels offer regular Russian-language programming and 5 radio stations also broadcast in Russian. Internet resources in Russian are widely available. According to official data Russian language education is available in public and private schools at all levels

Council of Europe assessments of Estonian compliance with the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities have observed the relative absence of members of national minorities from higher levels of public sector employment and disproportionately high levels of unemployment among national minorities (especially young women), problems affecting first and foremost Estonia's Russian minority Election Observation Project

Map with all Polling Stations Market, where our team have been

1.2 EOM Estonia – what is interesting there?

1.3 The Political and Electoral system of Estonia

1.3 Short introduction to the electoral system

On 1st March 2015 the citizens of Estonia have chosen their representatives to the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament. It is the main event in Estonian political life, because Estonia is parliamentary republic, the President of the Republic holding no executive power. For the elections, a total of 872 candidates representing 10 political parties were registered, competing for the electors' votes in order to obtain one of the 101 Riigikogu seats. Elections were due as the incumbent parliament completed its 4-year term, and generally took place under the aspect of democratic renewal after the resignation of Andrus Ansip from the post of Prime Minister in 2014, who had for the remaining legislative period entrusted leadership of the government to Taavi Rõivas. The parliamentary elections in Estonia are carried out according to a system of proportional representation, where political parties and non-aligned candidates can present themselves in 12 multi-member districts. Votes are cast for individual candidates from party lists; candidates obtain a direct mandate if they acquire a number of individual votes that is higher than the quota of total valid votes divided by total available seats, while all remaining seats are filled proportionally according to the share of votes their parties collected.. Estonia has pursued the development of the e-state and e-government. Internet voting is used in elections in Estonia. The first internet voting took a place in the 2005 local elections and the first in a parliamentary election was made available for the 2007 elections, in which 30,275 individuals voted over the internet. In the 2015 parliamentary elections, this number has increased to a full 176,491

voters, which accounts for one third of the electorate. The main reason for the extensive use of e-voting may be found in its convenience: It allows citizens to cast their votes from home within a few minutes, and it is available for an extended period of time before the election day:

For the traditional voting on election day, the procedure is straightforward and generally described by the picture below - nothing to add, just these 6 steps:

The counting procedure goes through 3 stages: First counting take a place right in the polling station by members of the local committee ("PEC"), who submit the results via an electronic system to the National Electoral Committee (NEC). Consequently, all ballots are sealed and brought to the district committee ("DEC"), where they are stored. Then, remarkably, at 10:00 on the next day, the NEC performs a recount of the entire vote.

1.4 Overview of political parties

Apart from these few remarks about the electoral system, we’d like to describe the general political situation we encountered. By summarising the main goals of each political party taking part in the elections, we think we can provide a good overview of what has been keeping Estonians busy politically. The main political forces in Estonia are: - The Estonian Reform Party’s goal is to build a Nordic, Liberal Estonia. This political force promised to go closer with EU and far with Russia. Also they’re very focusing on improving social conditions. The reformists have ruled the country since 2005, creating coalitions with all other parties present in the parliament except for the Centre Party, with whom they have strong ideological inconsistencies. - The Estonian Centre Party have their electoral basis with the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia. More than 72% of Russian-speaking Estonians are usually voting for Centrists and their leader, Edgar Savisaar, can be regarded as the most popular politician in Estonia, gathering the highest amount of personal votes during the 2015 elections. They are focusing on economy development for stopping immigration (since 2000 it rising continually). Centre Party are also promising a 1000 Euro minimum wage. - The Pro Patria & Res Publica Party Union is an alliance of two liberal parties founded on 4th June 2006 and led by Urmas Reinsalu. They promise to the electorate a better tax system, education and wages. The Union have a significant support in Estonia, also because of lots of new faces in the team, but economists are very sceptical about their promises, not least because Union leaders did not provide any plan on how they are going to implement these promises.

- The Social Democratic Party was created in 1990 and is the party of the current President of the Republic, Toomas Hendrik Ilves. It has been led since 16th October 2010 by former Defence Minister Sven Misker. This political force focuses in their program on economic and social improvements, which had to be reached also by increasing taxes percentage for business. Additionally, with the Free Party of Estonia and People Conservative party, two young parties which weren’t represented in the parliament during the last period have made it to the Riigikogu in 2015. Both of them are interested in bringing Estonians who lives abroad back to the country by improving life and economical conditions here.

Election Observation Project

Sources: • http://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/doc/oee/oee-1572-en.pdf • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_parliamentary_election,_2015 • http://vvk.ee/public/RK2015/Slides_for_Election_Observers.pdf

1.3 The Political and Electoral system of Estonia


2.1. Lasnamae, Tallinn. Viktor Bezhenar (Kyiv, Ukraine) and Lucrezia Aresi (Milano, Italy) Since that everything in Estonian election had to be very transparent and predictable our team wanted to get some impressions:) So that, we decided to observe the 6 polling stations in Lasnamae region. Why we considered this district as an attractive place? Because Lasnamae is:

- biggest neighborghood in Estonia

(population is 117087 what is more than tenth of all Estonian population - consists of panel apartment buildings made by 1960-80-th - majority of population are ethnic russians

Taking into account, that for us, one of the most interesting topics there was Russian minority issues and surrounds, we would very interested to see. And there we’ve expected that something interesting and abnormal could take a place.

One of us have the Russian language as a mother tongue, so sure I wanted to use it and take as much useful information as possible. And actually in most of the places we communicated with comitee members in russian (and most of them were happy with that, because in Lasnamae very few of PEC members could speak English).

Lasnamae is typical soviet neighboourghood – no

difference

But our overall conclusion – organization of elections was just as a perfect as It could be. Our first polling station was located in Umera 3 str., in the east-end of Tallinn. Inside of panel blocks we found 2-floor supermarket, where was located our PS. Near the café was built a portable room, where people had to leave their votes. Opening ceremony went well, all the boxes were sealed properly, people went through the voting procedure without any additional questions. To fill our reports we had to gather some information about amount of voters, about amount of boxes and so on, and we should say that in Umera 3 Polling Station members not shared much with us. By their answers they just didn’t know this info - on any question they were sending us into the internet, where all these written. Unfortunately we weren’t found this in internet, so our reports weren’t filled properly. Except of this (what actually are not significant - comittee workers are not obligated to give us so many information, it is a decision of anyone) everything went good there.

Polling Station in a supermarket

While finishing our coffee in Shopping Centre we went to our next Polling Station - located in the Linnamäe tee 10. The location is a liceum with presence of Russian language classes, so I didn’t wondered to see a lot of Russian language inside of the building.


Polling Station #44 was located in “psychologiest class” - there was a 4 big cabins with a table inside and with a retractable glass-door. In these cabins, usually performs the conversations between kids and psychologiest, but at 1-st March there Estonians had to leave a mark for preferable candidate. Actually these cabins encountered the biggest questions of us - these cabins were unconfortable for people, they made the process more complicated. For example, cabins usually weren’t closed and people went into it while someone was inside - it was confusing. When the door was closed, old people bumped to the door - we saw few examples of it. Here we saw an example of group voting, but it was acceptable - the blind man wouldn’t do anything by himself, so under the supervision of PEC chairperson, his wife helped him to make a vote. That is it, here I also want to add the comitee members was very pleasant to us - they shared all information were needed and were fully cooperating with us to get a clear view of voting process in this Polling Station. In this polling station we met a representatives of Ukrainian Observers Team - Opora, the real professionals with huge experience in political observations. It was very interesting to talk with them for us - young persons who are making our first election observations!

Our next stop was also in Russian lyceum in the edge of Lasnamae district - Vormsi 3 street. In big school’s concet hall, elections took a place. Everything was organizing very well, no questions to layout - everything was visible and very clear. But here we were encountered with interesting situation with unregistered voters. We saw more than 5 such abnormal examples. The deal is that people were getting their invitations into the elections by post. But when they came into polling station, they are seeing that they are not registered into voters list! So they can not vote. I’ve asked the chairperson what is going on, on what he answered only, that it is not his fault - he is only doing his job. To collect Vote List is responisbility of National Voters

Registry of Estonia, not his. So chairperson has no idea, why these people got an invitation but weren’t in the voter list, he could only assume. We noted these situation, made a conclusion that everything else was well here and moved into next polling station.

In Paepargi 57 we came ocassionally. I wanted to buy some water in the supermarket, and when we come into the first one found we realised that there is our polling station where we committed to observe! But this polling station had exactly the worst layout - the box was so small, that it was very inconvinient to the people to be inside. Only here we saw a crowds - only because of no space around. In general everything went well here. We didn’t get information about presence of party members, but once again - it is a right of chairperson to share this information with observers or don’t. But only here we saw an example of political agitation in the voters day - the 7-year kid came into polling station and shouted - “Vote for Edgaraas Savisaar!” (the lead of Centre Party) - sure we don’t consider this as a violation, just a funny case. We should note something abnormal even in such ideal country like Estonia!:)

Our team under umbrella of democracy


At the Polling Station #27 at Majaka 2 str. we

found that comitee members have no idea

why they need an observers in their station.

They didn’t want to talk with us at all, didn’t

want to show boxes with votes, didn’t want to

cooperate at all. But what can we do, we

stayed away and just observed what’s going

on. And we had to say, that everything were

good - people came, voted and went out, with

no questions or complains. Only one thing

which casts doubt on the secrecy of voting -

camera (with green light) which was located

above the voters cabine. Sure the PEC

members said that it is turned off and so on,

but how can we check? We can only note it

and share this new.

Lasnamae neighboorghood

In the our last Polling Station at Pallasti 54

we stayed on counting. Counting was very

well-organized by such a radient chairperson

and very clear. We saw each step of process

and didn’t found any irregularity. We saw how

amount of votes was sent to the DEC and

how the cabins were packed t. At 11:30 PM

me and Lucrezia realised that this long day is

finally finished and we can go home with a

clear thought in mind - Estonian elections

went transparent and was organised very

good. This small country is a real example to

follow.

Viktor Bezhenar

Closing Procedures in our last PS


2.2. Pohja-Tallinn, Haabersti, Kristiine. Tallinn Percin Imrek (Istanbul, Turkey) and Tamara Beresh (Kyiv, Ukraine)

On 1 March, Estonian voters elected 101 members of the Parliament for a 4-year term in 12 multi-member electoral districts by proportional representation with open lists. A nationwide 5 per cent threshold for being represented in the parliament is still valid. [1] Following the deployment of AEGEE official election observation mission to regular Riigikogu elections in Estonia, the team of two observers (Team 2) representing Ukraine and Turkey undertook observing designated election district in capital city Tallinn: Pohja-Tallinn.

On election day observation Team 2 conducted in-depth analysis of three main stages of electoral process in each polling station particularly: opening, voting, closing, vote counting and tabulation. Election district: Team 2 election observation was conducted in city district Pohja-Tallinn integrated to Election district №1 altogether comprising Haabersti, Põhja-Tallinn and Kristiine dictricts. Given Pohja-Tallin consists of 13 polling stations. Remarkably, north-western district accumulates one of the biggest share of Russian speaking minorities: more than 30% the same number equal to Haabersti, and Mustamäe city districts [2]. Population composition, language preferences were regulated in line with core election legal instrument: Riigikogu Election Act which means no additional privileges were granted to non-citizens, long-term residents, etc. Consequently, only Estonian citizens who have attained 18 years of age by election day have the right to vote [3]. Opening. In compliance with opening procedure Team 2 arrived to the first polling station №083 at 08:00 and observed all visible election materials (voter lists, ballot papers, ballot booths), properly sealed ballot box, PEC steal in place. Six out of seven PEC members

were present and demonstrated cooperative approach to observers` presence with no obstacles being met while performing our functions. Voting. Starting from the second polling stations voting procedures were duly monitored. Campaigning silence period was properly adhered to and no political campaigning materials except info posters and Estonian flags indicating polling station were present. No large crowd in/in fron of polling station, unrest, turmoil, political rallies was detected. Primary stage of electoral process - voter registration - is simple, fast and requires only personal ID to be produced to cast a vote. In majority of cases, observers were fully provided with access to PEC premises, materials etc. The case of information denial on voters` turnout, PEC members present at the moment took place in one of the polling stations explained supposedly by misunderstanding of observer mandate and functions.

Tallin streets

http://info.rk2015.vvk.ee/valimisjaoskonnad/0784/0614

http://vddb.library.lt/fedora/get/LT-eLABa-0001:J.04~2010~ISSN_2029-2074.N_5.PG_39-51/DS.002.1.01.ARTIC

http://info.rk2015.vvk.ee/valimisjaoskonnad/0784/0614


Closing and Counting. Final stage of election day finished at polling station №085, at 19:45. In general terms, closing and counting procedure were hold in due manner in compliance with rules regarding closing premises as soon as counting started; public opening of mobile/regular ballot boxes; crosschecking spoiled, used ballot papers with control sheets etc. Though lacking genuine announcing of the action PEC members were taking, there could be minor malpractices of procedural issues. Despite formal votes tabulation is being conducted in county election commission (DEC) in transparent environment, the genuine observation process was hurdled by incompatibility of observation forms with national tabulation system. Further tailoring of tabulation forms shall eradicate initial flaws. National Minority. According to statics, there are 1,350,548 people registered in Estonia. Of them, 1,143,183 are Estonian citizens (an additional 100,800 Estonian citizens live abroad), 114,371 are citizens of other countries (including 92,338 citizens of Russian Federation), and 85,312 are residents with undetermined citizenship. [1] Protection of national minority rights including provision of election material in minority native language is an issue for Estonian political discourse. Given population composition of Pohja-Tallinn district few samples of election information materials were observed available in Russian. Based on information provided by PEC member, it was produced and disseminated in advance to e-day at the cost of local municipality. Consequently, further insurance of national minorities’ rights in the electoral process may benefit from further scrutiny.

General assessment. AEGEE election team noted high level of professionalism and impartiality of election administration at the level of voting election though minor irregulations in form of incidental group voting, misunderstanding of observer mandate posed an issue. In light of electronic voting trusted by all electoral stakeholders 25% of voters cast their votes via mobile ID that gives e-voting system security improvement an added value. Percin Imrek

[1]http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/estonia/139566?download=true

2http://vddb.library.lt/fedora/get/LT-eLABa-0001:J.04~2010~ISSN_2029-2074.N_5.PG_39-51/DS.002.1.01.ARTIC

[3]file:///C:/Users/UNHCRuser/Downloads/Estonia_Riigikogu%20Election%20Act_am2012_en.pdf

http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/estonia/139566?download=true





2.3. Viimsi - a suburban town east of Tallinn Tallinn Dennis Hesling (Berlin, Germany), Robert Netzband (Goerzke, Germany)

Our STO - German-Dutch team arrived at 8:00 am in Viimsi, a suburban town east of Tallinn. The following hours we would visit a total of six stations in three different locations. We eventually concluded our observations at around 11 pm with the completion of counting in the final voting station.

To begin, in the morning, after arriving we still had half an hour before going to the station. We used the time to become more familiar with the city and the surroundings of the polling station, no campaign material was noticed. At 8:30 we entered the voting station, at this time only students attending a sport event where around. However, everything was set up and 10 minutes later the station officials entered the location. They seemed prepared to their day of work, and the officials did not appear to be surprised to meet us. This natural and self- evident encounter of us election observers struck us positively all day long. The chairwomen assured us full support and one of her colleagues helped with translating. We could observe the sealing of the empty ballot box and already 15 minutes before the opening first people came in, but were asked to wait. After the opening, several people went voting, in the following hour we observed no irregularities. We were amazed by the efficiency of the bureaucratic process and the support we received, both accompanied us the whole day. In this first polling station, we met also our first and only party observer, an elderly couple, from the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union Party, as indicated to us at that time by their blue scarves. Later we learned that they were Tunne Kelam, MEP, and his wife.

At the next station, Viimsi II, we came across two observers from Chile, both where interested in the electoral process in Estonia. Noteworthy is the fact that due to privacy concerns, a look into the voters list was not allowed to us, not an issue at the first station

though. Otherwise we received again full support. In both stations, the gender mixture in the polling station staff was clearly more favorable towards women. The composition of the voter’s body was heterogeneous. This changed slightly in our next observation district, Maardu, where we noticed more elderly people.

Special to observe was Maardu, on the one hand, due to its high level of Russian speakers, but also due to its clearly different social background. With one exception, the work in the polling station in Maardu was done by women. In this city we faced at one station a communication problem, however at another polling station we received help by a young student, which translated for us. Overall, it seemed that the people in this city managed the voting process even if language barriers existed. Remarkable were the many voters that did not take the secrecy of voting too seriously. In any case, in all three stations of Maardu we witnessed a constant flow of voters, all voters- IDs were checked, and only in few cases people where refused the right to vote, due to improper identification documents. As in Viimsi all stations displayed the same structure, with identical instruction material and procedures. However, the locations differed widely in their standing, from old schools or sport halls to modern and chic city halls.


After a long bus ride we finished the first part of our observation and went to our last station to observe the closing process in Tallinn, Lasnamae, in an old school building. Noteworthy, already several observers and media representatives had visited this polling station throughout the day. When the station closed the only major incident we observed was a voter screaming into his phone. He wanted to vote for a candidate on the national list, which is not possible. After the local officials explained this fact to him, he made a complaint to the election committee. As this final attempt of his was not successful he refused to vote and left the station.

The counting took eventually 3 hours and was conducted in a structured manner. Although it was not entirely clear to us who was assigned which role during the counting, the election commission handled the counting very effectively and each member knew what to do. Invalid votes were identified in a consistent manner and all procedures were rightfully followed. The only irregularity we noticed was an invalid vote put aside and temporarily forgotten. As they already entered the invalid votes into the system, and the system appeared to be rather rigid after entering the data, they had to discuss for about 20 minutes how to handle this problem. After the discussion, it was agreed by all members that one of the invalid votes would be marked as a spoiled vote. After this, all votes matched the protocol and the counting process was concluded by entering the last data into the system and sealing all the counted votes in a box to be brought to the District Electoral Committee. Dennis Hesling


2.4. Punanae, Kristiine Tallinn Lev Murynets (London, United Kingdom), Anna Pavani (Koln, Germany)

Our day started at 08.00 with a walking through the blocks of Punanae, a never-ending street of Lasnamae, an eastern district of Tallinn with a substantial if not dominant Russian-speaking population, where the biggest part of our group was staying. At 08.30 we managed to find a school where the polling station we chose for the observation of the opening procedures was supposed to be. As we arrived the election material was already prepared (the ballot box was already sealed and the members had already received their tasks). We were nicely welcomed, perhaps due to the fact that one of us could speak Russian rather well. Nothing remarkable happened apart from a man who entered the polling station to complain to the chair person that Estonia exists as an independent country. This was cooled by the staff, and was rather telling as it was an isolated case. We observed there also the voting procedures for a while and we noticed that the PEC members were ready, if asked, to translate into Russian the voting instructions in very pragmatic fashion. After meeting international observers from Ukraine and learning of their experiences and plans, we headed off to the area’s shopping center in order to visit the next polling station that surprised us because of the location. There we met international observers we encountered the day before at the seminar of the Electoral Commission. During the day we never met domestic observers. The next two polling stations we visited were in a school, the first of which being well run and even having a designated English-speaking committee member-the second was much the same, with the English teacher being the head of committee and happy to be in charge. There we experienced something unusual on behalf of a voter:

The man in question attracted the attention of the committee by his suspicious manner. He proceeded to follow the voting steps in normal fashion, yet spent longer than usual in the voting booth. A woman then entered the same booth, loudly discussing the voting procedure on her phone to the extent that a woman in the booth to her right noticed and asked the Committee to check-which they did. Two names were crossed out, and a swastika was drawn by one of the party lists. The second woman filed an official complaint as to why the booth wasn’t checked before the swastika could influence other voters-even asking us to help on the matter, needless to say we stated our purpose was to observe and that was that. The Committee was concerned at our witnessing the event, thinking we’d think less of them for letting it happen. It was, in the end a curious event-and we still don’t quite know what to make of it. The next polling station we were observing in was also in a shopping center but the conditions were vastly better than in the other one because of the silence and the calm voters could join in the second, largely deserted floor of the building. This polling station was the last one of Lasnamae.


After a break we took the bus to reach Kristine, a district of the south-west part of Tallinn, where we visited two polling stations, the first in a school and the second in the pedagogical seminary of the University. In both cases no major irregularities could be observed, and the greater part of voters had already come by before 1600 hours. For the counting we reached another district of Tallinn, Nomme, whose suburban character – spread out one-family-houses with garden and lot of green– was a big contrast to the densely populated urban district blocks we started with in the morning. At the polling station, a cultural center, we entered at 19.20 there was no delay and the last two people who wanted to cast their ballots arrived before the closing time. The biggest surprise was, apart from the organization of the procedures, the incredible speed and efficiency of the counting, whose results where entered in the on-line voting system after less than two hours from the closing time. We were helped by a polling station member, a young girl, to understand the procedure and we were prevented to enter the car with the ballot box only because of lack of place. Together with other team we met at the DEC where we were not allowed to attend the central counting. During our observation we generally met competent and helpfully PEC members, whose behavior towards us was at any time cooperative and welcoming and every polling station, where we were present, showed to respect the secret and fair character of a well-run election process.

Anna Pavani

Source of pic: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01973/Tartu-square620_1973950b.jpg

source of pic: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Beginning_of_Punane_street_in_Tallinn.jpg

source%20of%20pic:%20


2.5. Pohja-Tallinn Jana Bedanova (Prague), Ruben Wissing (Amsterdam)

Our team observed the opening procedure at

probably the smallest polling station we

visited during the parliamentary elections of

March 1st. We started our observation

mission West of Tallinn city center, in the

Põhja-Tallinn district. There was no large

crowd outside the polling station. We have

not experienced any major troubling

circumstances in- or outside polling stations

at all. During the opening procedure, at which

we arrived 30 minutes in advance, the

procedures were strictly followed by the

committee members.

The Põhja-Tallinn peninsula was because of

its industrial sites and quite environment easy

to walk through. The same experience we

noticed in the polling stations. Because there

was no overcrowding, the election

committees could easily oversee the voting

process and clear voting instructions were

posted in- and outside of polling stations

(although not in Russian). Even though some

election officials we encountered during our

mission did not expect international

observers, everyone was very welcoming and

cooperative. In most polling stations we

visited, the committee members were of

different ages and sexes. Because most

young officials spoke English, we did not

encounter problems due to the language

barrier.

Therefore, asking for regulations and

procedures was easy. Due to electronic

voting and the overall online nature of the

elections, some observation materials were

not present in paper, but on computers, such

as the protocol the committees worked with.

We could nevertheless see in practice that

every step of the voting process was carried

out properly at polling stations in the Põhja-

Tallinn district.

Presumably, the voters were overall aged

over 30. The turnout of young people was

lower, which can be, however, related to the

particularity of the district we were observing.

We did encounter some irregularities, e.g.

one case of proxy voting where an elderly

lady marked two ballots in one polling booth,

one for herself and one for her husband who

stood waiting outside of the booth which went

unnoticed by the election committee. Also,

we did encounter one case where secrecy of

the vote was somewhat disrupted as one

man stormed into the already occupied booth

to intimidate the voter present. The

committee members did act fast enough in

this matter. Though, these examples were

exceptional and do not seem to indicate a

regular fraud pattern. Also the closing and

counting procedures were followed properly.

In general, the observations we made from

the closing of the ballet boxes until the

counting of the votes were almost identical

and the processes could be summarized as

transparent, clear and cooperative.

Ruben Wissing


2.6. Kesklinna, Tallinn Marieke Walraven(Amsterdam), Cono Giardullo (Rome)

Marieke Walraven, 19, the Netherlands and Cono Giardullo, 28, Italy represent STO Team Number 6 of AEGEE Election Observation Mission (EOM) to Estonia. The EOM took place from 27 February to 1 March 2015 and was aimed at observing the thirteenth Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament) Elections. Our team was assigned to Tallinn, City Centre District or Kesklinna District. During the Election Day we monitored a total of 6 Polling Stations (PS): one for the opening, four for the voting, and a final one during the closing process and counting procedures. Our job as observers is to monitor the procedures and see whether they are followed or not by the PEC members. PEC stands for Polling Station Electoral Committee. As observers we look out for irregularities in these procedures, such as voters being denied the right to vote (for inappropriate reasons), PEC members not checking ID's, the presence of party proxies etc. In Estonia, however, we witnessed very little of these irregularities. Whenever I did saw a small irregularity, it were honest procedural mistakes. During the day, we met with all PS Chairpersons and had a frank dialogue about statistics, problems and complaints to be dealt with inside the District and the PS. We registered a record of five out of six PS Chairpersons being female, while an overall picture of all PS Staff would be fairly gender balanced.

We have experienced almost no difficulties while observing on Election Day. At all of the Polling Stations we visited, there was at least one person present who had a strong command of the English language. Language has never compromised our observing. Whenever the chair person didn't speak English, someone else would step in, act as an interpreter and answer all of our questions. In general, all of the PEC members were very helpful and welcoming. Some really took the time to talk with us. They wanted to know who we are, where we were from and why we travelled to Estonia to observe their elections. While observing the opening process, we were slightly undermined in our monitoring capacities, because we were not provided with a full list of election materials to be present at each PS. This is certainly not PS staff responsibility, while the Estonian Ministry of Interior could have provided the list to AEGEE project organizers in time to update our Report Forms. Furthermore, the PS opening and closing were done in perfect time. Throughout the day we encountered no political parties representatives, or unauthorized civilian and military personnel inside the buildings we monitored. On the contrary, we met two non-partisan groups of observers: one from the Ukrainian NGO “Opora” and the second one from the Russian NGO “Golos”. We have never experienced any strange circumstances outside the PS, such as overcrowding, campaign material or activities present, intimidation of voters, tensions and unrest. But regrettably, election materials were not available in the language of national minorities – we refer to Russian language, as 25% of the current Estonian population is Russian ethnic.


Transparency was extensively safeguarded, as we have always had a clear view of the voting procedures, and PS members fully cooperated with us during our observation. We were also positively impressed by the counting process, as there were no contested votes among the PS members. All votes were double counted and counter checked against the total number of ballots printed and assigned to that PS from the District Electoral Commission.

Going on an Election Observation Mission was a new experience to both of us. It was our first mission, so we didn’t have any material to compare the Riigikogu Elections to. However, we both have voted at home. As a voter, you don’t pay such close attention to the electoral process. When voting at home we just went inside the polling booth, selected our candidate of choice, put our ballots in the ballot box and went home where we waited for the results. Being an observer in the Riigikogu elections, both of us focused on the procedures rather than the outcome - something we had never done before. The process fascinated us: it was beautiful to see how trivial acts - as sorting, counting and marking ballots - carried out by normal people contribute to a functioning and transparent democracy. All the six Report Forms we filled in received the maximum appreciation: “Very Good”. Marieke Walraven

Beautiful, old Tallinn


2.7. Pirita, Tallinn Milan Thies (Munster, Germany), Shavit Ben-Arie (Jerusalem)

In the end of February 2015 a group of 22 young election observers from all over Europe as well as from Israel traveled to Tallinn with the task to observe the Estonian parliamentary elections. In this short report we will summarize what we experienced.

First of all we were impressed by the diverse opportunities available for Estonian citizens to vote: Preliminary voting, E-voting, mobile voting and the common voting on Election Day. Therefore we expected fewer people at the polling stations in Election Day than we observed. During the day we visited five polling stations in the region of Pirita, close to Tallinn. The committees in each polling station received us in a helpful and friendly way. We were therefore able to get access to most of the necessary data and to make sure that there were no violations of democratic standards taking place during the elections. However, as no system works perfectly - in two of five cases we had to experience minor intransparency as we were not allowed to check whether signatures were doubled in the voters list, what would mean that someone voted multiple times.

We were neither able to observe the tabulation process after the polling stations had finished counting the votes. We therefore kindly invite the Estonian national voting committee to provide the possibility of observation during the tabulation of results for the next elections.

Even though these observations were made we would describe the system as very effective and democratic. It is also noteworthy to indicate the kind and informative welcome made by the national election committee towards delegations of foreign observers; their readiness to introduce us to the local system and data relating to special characteristics of the Estonian elections was a valuable contribution for our quick integration.

Milan and Shavit


2.8. Paldiski, Keila Michele Bezzi (Bergamo, Italy), Annekathrin Vietense (Koln, Germany)

Estonia has a population of 1 million and 300 thousands inhabitants and a total of around 900 thousand people were asked to vote for the parliamentary elections, which took place on the 1st March 2015. The Election Observation Mission is a project created by AEGEE, one of the biggest student association in Europe, and its main goal is to observe the elections and then report their observation; the Estonian mission was composed by 23 people from all over Europe, Turkey included, and were divided in couples in order to deploy the group to different places and to enhance the observation having at least two different point of view; our group was the number 8 and composed by Anne Vietense from Germany and Michele Bezzi from Italy; the day before election, 28-th February, we had a general briefing about our job and we had to choose the polling stations to observe during the election day; we choose to go the polling stations in Paldiski Linn (town), Keila Vald(countryside) and Keila Linn (town). At the Election Day we woke up at 6 am to be at 8.30 am at the first polling station (Paldiski linn 1), a library in the city hall of the town of Paldiski, only 50 km from Tallinn, to follow the opening procedures; the first thing we noticed outside the station was a banner in both languages, Estonian and Russian, which we have never seen anymore at the next steps. Then we checked the voter list, the number of the ballot papers, the polling booth and the ballot boxes that had to be empty and perfectly sealed, at the end of this steps the chairperson had to put the number of the seals into the protocol. The polling station opened on time and the voting session started right after, around 50 people came to vote during the time we were there. Everything worked perfectly and the electoral commission did a great job, for instance they checked all the ID-card, the voter list and

followed all the procedures that lead us to fill the Voting form with no problem; moreover they spoke a good English which allowed us to have a great collaboration, learning a lot about the social situation of the town and enjoying our work. Then we went to the other polling stations following this order: Keila vald 2, Keila vald 1, Keila linn 2, Keila linn 1; there is not much to say about the voting procedures, all the electoral commissions did their job with no mistakes trying to keep order and democracy in every polling station. We just realized that in general there is a good proficiency in English that helped us to ask many things to the chairpersons even though in some rural places we couldn’t communicate much because the population spoke only Estonian and Russian; another consideration is that the voting session took place in places such as: public swimming pools, culture centres and shopping malls which, for some point of view, helps to increase the number of votes. The last observation took place at the public swimming pool in the town of Keila (Keila linn 2) where we observed the closing session and consequent counting of the ballot papers. There were not designed roles during this step, the electoral commission only double checked the ballot papers and after all they sealed into the appropriate envelopes. At 10 pm, before the end of the procedure and after we filled the closing and counting form, we left the session since no one of the PEC could bring us to the DEC and our last train to Tallinn was at 10.20 pm.


2.9. Juri, Peeteri, Ullemiste, Tallinn Miha IIc (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Diego Antoncic (Konstanz, Germany)

Our observation day started at 8:50 in a small town called Jüri, which is 15 minutes away from Tallinn by bus. First pooling station was situated in a local school and it opened its doors exactly on time at 9:00. There was no crowd and everything was going on as planned. The officials at the pooling station were slightly concerned, probably due to the fact that did not expect international observers so early in the morning. However, they were very polite and provided us with detailed information about the general condition of the pooling station. We left pooling station after one hour of observation and took a walk towards the next station, which was unusually close to the first one. The second station was situated in a municipality building and it was much more crowded than the previous one. Once again, we did not have any problems with the observations; the officials were quite kind and they were not so upset, though they had to do a lot of work. They provided us with the detailed information about the elections as well. After an hour of the observation we moved to another pooling station. Due to the fact that it was Sunday and that there was no public transport in the town, we went to main road nearby and tried to hitchhike to another city even further away from Tallinn. After 20 minutes of unlucky waiting for a car to pick us up, we decided to skip the station and move towards another one, closer to Tallinn. We found transport at the gas station by asking one man to drive us to Peeteri – not really a town, but a nice living area on the outskirt of Tallinn. Our pooling station was situated at the Gymnasium building. This pooling station was very crowded, especially with young families with children. The officials seemed to be quite curious and disturbed by our presence, because they did not expect any international observers. Once again, the voting process

went smoothly, without major problems. We left the station after an hour of observation. After Peetri, we stopped in nearby shopping centre, where we had lunch and gained some energy, before continuing our observation journey. Fourth pooling station was situated in a sport complex near airport in the district called Üllemiste, which is part of a larger district Lasnamäe. At this station, the officials were extremely polite - they offered us seats and told us that they are open for any kind of questions. With all information and without any problems noticed in a voting process, we left the place after one hour of observation. Our last polling station was in the hospital called Magdalena on Pärnu Street, almost in the centre of Tallinn. There, we observed voting process, closing and counting of the votes. The process of the vote counting and closing went well and the polling station officials allowed us to observe their work. However, the officials made small mistake in the closing process – they closed polling station around 20 minutes after 20:00. In addition, the officials did not provide us with a copy of the final protocol, which limited our observation possibilities. We ended very interesting observation day around midnight, filled with positive feelings and new useful experiences.


2.10. Tartu Maud ter Hark(Amsterdam, Netherlands), Antonella Luisi (Bologna,Italy)

We were the only AEGEE that observed the election in Tartu while all the others stayed in Tallinn. The opening polling station was located in the city-center on Turu street. Unfortunately, due to logistical problems, we were not able to monitor the opening procedure from the very beginning. However, the preparations we did observe followed the right order, the PEC members were willing to cooperate and the voting started on time.

During the day we visited five more polling stations, of which one was located in a school and all the others in shopping malls. All the stations were really well organized, provided with the necessary material and arranged as to give both to the observers and the PEC members a clear overview. This was however not the case in the fourth polling station. Due to the small and narrow shape of the room it became easily crowded so that neither the officials, nor the observers were able to fully monitor the voting process. In general, no major irregularities were observed but there were a few inconsistencies among the different stations. It was not clear whether the assistance voting was allowed or not, since some PEC members constantly intervened to split those who entered the polling booths in couples, while others did not. Some commented that it was allowed for those who could not vote by themselves to ask for help of another voter yet we have also seen . In all stations officials were cooperative, friendly and willing to answer our questions, even if only few of them spoke English. We have seen no other observers, whether domnestic or otherwise.

We observed the vote counting in a polling station located in a supermarket in the North-East, not far from the city-center. The station closed perfectly on time. We should note that there was no control sheet in the ballot box although we know that none of the other teams deployed during this mission took note of them. The officials had a good knowledge of the counting procedure with a separate counting of the ballots sent by post and those of the mobile voting. All of the ballots were counted three times. In general, the secrecy of the process was preserved, but the choice and the validity of each ballot was not announced aloud. The counting lasted from 8pm till 11pm.

Maud and Antonella

3. Conclusion

What did we take from this Election Observation Mission to Estonia? Thanks to the interesting and great opportunity to observe the elections in the country, we had the chance to improve our capabilities and to developed some skills. We gave our contribution to the coverage of the elections with international observers, visiting a concrete number of polling stations and interacting with the elections officials. We always did our best to act in a professional way, trying to demonstrate reliability and integrity our commitment to democracy. During the Mission, as observers we noted high level of professionalism, integrity and impartiality of election administration at the level of voting election. The existence of a wide range of political parties and media contributes to a pluralistic and various election environment. Generally speaking, the PEC members have been welcoming, helpful and competent. They cooperate with us, answering our questions and clarifying every our doubt. At the same time, they showed curiosity about us, asking about our role and origins.

The counting procedure have been conducted in a structured manner and the election commission handled the procedure in a very good way. There were no contested votes among the PS members and all votes have been double counted, confirming the transparency of the entire process. We didn’t find negative circumstances outside the PS, such as intimidation of voters, tensions, unrest or campaign material/activities present and The PS opening and closing were done in perfect time. Even if the election materials were not available in Russian, the huge participation of national minorities in the electoral process is seen as a positive aspect. Apart from the opportunity to participate in this electoral observation mission, we had the chance to discover a new charming country, full of kind and warm people (despite the cold temperature!). Moreover, we as a group, developed team working and team building skills, building relationships that will last after this experience.

Evaluation Meeting – what we’ve actually got from Observation Mission?

4. Credits

For their invaluable contribution to this project, we would like to thank: - The Young Election Observers of the Polish Forum of Young Diplomats for the amazing cooperation. A special thanks to Slawomir Szyszka, who shared methodology and knowledge with us, helped us to arrange the visit to Tallinn Parliament, with official tour and guide in English, and to attend the Program for International Observers organized by the Estonia's National Electoral Committee.

- Matis Joab and all the AEGEE Tallinn members, for arranging our accommodation, making their office available to us, printing materials, guiding us through Tallinn and organizing amazing evenings entertainment . - The Estonia's National Electoral Committee, for their invitation at the headquarter and the joint seminary on Friday 27th March. Specifically, thanks to Mr. Arne Koitmae for the introduction to electoral administration in Estonia and Ms. Anna Karolin for her speech about elections and parties in Estonia from the perspective of the Guardians of Good Conduct.

Moreover, we would like to thank the NEC for the Program for International Observers we attended on Saturday 28th March at the Meriton Grand Conference & Spa Hotel, focused on the Estonian Electoral System and the aspects of the e-voting system. - All Observers: Michele Bezzi, Jana Bedanova , Miha Ilc, Cono Giardullo, Ruben Wissing, Tamara Beresh, Milan Thies , Anna Maria Walraven , Maud ter Hark, Diego Antončić, Perçin İmrek, Shavit Ben-Arie, Anna Pavani , Antonella Luisi, Lev Murynets, Annekathrin Vietense, Dennis Hesling, Robert Netzband. Everyone, thanks to the commitment and positive energy, gave an important contribution to the mission! Lucrezia, Viktor & Thomas

AEGEE Observers with Polish Young Diplomats in Estonian Parliament. Great experience!

5. Appendix A - Personal Impressions

Apart from all the dry reports, there are numerous stories to tell of encounters, events and experiences during election day. To give a more colourful impression of the Mission, some observers wrote a personal story about their adventures.

3.1 “An “Observer” among the voters”

Cono Giardullo (Rome, Italy)

The establishment of the Schengen area has allowed us, young Europeans, to travel freely around Europe, and discover every country’s marvel even for a short weekend. After few days spent in a city, we pretend to acquire a deep knowledge of the places we visited and once back we start telling stories to our friends, being sure of having caught the ‘essence’ of a different culture.

Election observers do pretty much the same, with one simple difference: we witness the Election Day!

This is what differentiates us from usual weekend travellers, as it allows us to take part – a passive though - into the most intimate act of every democratic country’s citizen: his right to vote. Indeed, elections and referendums are the only moments during which citizens attribute a meaning to the recurrent constitutional clause: “the sovereignty belongs to the people”.

Observers are supposed to spend some time – 20/40 minutes in average – in each polling station (PS). Besides checking that all procedures are fully respected and asking few questions to the PS Chairperson – way too boring in Estonia where elections are performed in an exemplary manner – much more interesting is the ‘human observation’.

I only realized this on Monday, when all the excitement about the Election Day was gone. What a privilege is to observe, in each PS, all sorts of human stories developing right in front of me.

All over the weekend, international media have reported that Estonians elections were strongly influenced by the aggressive stance of the Russian President in his quest to reaffirm his sphere of influence within the former Soviet Union space, starting with Ukraine.

This is why I was positively impressed by the routinely slow pace of old people, the smiling faces of 18 years old first time voters, the joy of couples and families, all of them calmly and respectfully accomplishing their most important civic duty.

“An Agitator among the voters” Roman Treuman

(1952), KUMU Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn


I want to share two episodes I retained:

1. It is my third PS, when I encounter a great number of families coming to cast their ballots, and bringing along their children. All the little round red faces, fully covered by big hats and bonnets seemed pretty bored while waiting their parents accomplishing a series of useless actions: pulling out their own photo from the wallets, reading a list of names, hiding behind a curtain, and dropping a piece of paper into a blue box. But this very young Estonian citizen made my day, when wandering around the room, opened up the curtain where his mother was voting, and started playing with it. He probably breached the holy rule of “secret ballot”, but was indeed a quite excusable violation!

2. Russian citizens account for little more than 25% of the Estonian population, and election materials were often not available in Russian language. No doubts, then, that when an old ethnic Russian lady stepped in the PS I was monitoring, once she got the ballot, she entered the polling booth and abruptly felt lost. She was only supposed to write down a number, designating the candidate. Thus, she called her son for help. But the PS Chairperson rapidly walked in between the two to prevent the “unlawful help”. Well done! But please let’s improve minorities’ rights in this almost perfect electoral process.

Still, after 5 days in Tallinn, I do not pretend to have fully grasped the ‘essence’ of the Estonian culture. But certainly this beautiful country allowed me to do something more: monitoring another country’s elections reminded me the privilege we have in choosing our representatives – something we easily tend to forget.

Cono Giardullo


3.2 “Estonia EOM - how it was to me?”

Percin Imrek (Istanbul, Turkey)

Before I set foot on Estonian soil, I could guess that this observation mission will be rather more easygoing than my previous one, which was in Moldova. Now, I do not say that there was anything (or much) wrong with the elections in Moldova, but with the combination of a little knowledge on Estonian culture, an overview of the Nordic mentality and the flawlessness of the past elections, I did not have much space for doubt on the elections in Estonia. After I left the country, I was assured that my confidence was justified. We were going to Estonia to see if the citizens are doing their responsibilities by voting, and if the officials are doing their responsibilities by making sure that the votes have been counted fairly and every one was involved in the voting process. But were we doing our responsibilities as observers and preparing ourselves for this mission? Did we know enough about the Estonian culture, Estonian Politics, Estonian voting procedures and (last but not the least), the process of E-Voting? The organizers of this mission thought this through and arranged a series of activities for us, in which: - We have been to the Estonian Parliament, where we had a small tour by an official, which followed by an information session on how the Parliament works. - We met with group of observers from Poland, “Forum of Young Diplomats”, where one person from the e-voting committee explained us what e-voting is (and how it works) in a nutshell. Then another person (representing chief national NGO institution Network of Estonian Non-Governmental Organization) told us about their initiative to name & shame political parties which do not act according to the rules & legislations (yes, in Estonia they break the law too). NENO launched national wide “good electoral practice” campaign ensuring all running for Parliamentary

elections parties act in line with democratic commitments avoiding intimidation of voters, indirect vote buying, etc. - We attended a big scale conference where professors and experts came and delivered speeches about the history of Estonian politics, the implementation of e-voting and some infographics on the current Estonian elections. With these sessions and a little bit of homework, we were ready and steady to play our role as observers for the Riigikoguu elections in Estonia. Waking up very early on the 1st of March, I have left with my colleague Tamara (from Ukraine) to go to Pohja-Tallinn, a region on the Northwest Tallinn, apparently with a big Russian minority. This was a major asset for us, while 1. My partner was a native Russian speaker. 2. We were going to have a better chance to observe how Russian minorities are involved in the elections. So we started the day… From the first polling station to the last one (we have been to 13 PS in total), things went pretty ordinary. In one occasion where a voter came, took his ballot paper, and just tore it apart (as a sign of protest we believe) and left without voting. Amongst all that dullness, this seemed like an exciting happening for us.


In some of the polling stations, with the small talks we have exchanged with the PEC members, they made comments like ‘so it must be thrilling to observe elections here’ or ‘make sure you write nasty things on your report’, ironically referring to how everything goes smooth. In the polling stations, apart from the regular voting procedures, where the voter presented his/her ID, took his/her ballot, entered the voting stations, wrote down the number (yes, the candidates were numbered, not stamped), and down put his envelope in the ballot box; when there were no voters left in the station, the PEC members just stayed there quietly, exchanging polite smiles with each other, barely speaking. Russian is not an official language of Estonia, so we understand that there were no Russian materials available for the Russian speaking population (which is around 25% of the whole Estonian population). However, we believe that providing materials in Russian would have been helpful for the small amount of people who do not speak Estonian, but only Russian (these are generally old people), since it is important that everybody is equally involved in the voting process, and Russian speaking population is a reality of Estonia. Only our group though, found some materials (voting guides) in Russian in the Pohja Tallinn region distributed by the municipality in advance to the election day by post. However, none of the other groups have come across to such material, which means that it was not widely distributed. Only contributing to the positive image of Estonia, the PEC members were generally very friendly and helpful with us, answering our questions without hesitation (only one PEC member was wondering why we were asking these questions), having interesting conversations with us, and even offering us some Estonian flag wrapped cookies. All in all, the small but strongly democratic, one of a kind country Estonia did not surprise us, and delivered as expected.

We are hoping that every country becomes as transparent, fluid and diligent as Estonia is being today. Percin Imrek


3.3 “My surprises and conclusions”

Jana Bedanova (Prague, Checzh Republic)

I recently completed the EIUC Training for International Electoral Observers prepared by the EU and OSCE electoral professionals and I was excited to join AEGEE on my first mission to Estonia. I was looking forward to seeing how it all works in practice. I was pleased that AEGEE committed to adhere to the OSCE methodology and forms, which made it an even greater experience for me.

Before my colleague and I set out early in the morning of the election day to our first polling station, we had a couple of concerns: Are we going to be able to communicate with the locals as neither of us spoke Estonian or Russian? Will we actually be able to observe any possible irregularities since in an EU country like Estonia any fraud attempts might be expected to be very sophisticated?

We were positively surprised that we did not experience issues with the language barrier as much as we had expected. There was always somebody at each committee with English skills who was willing to communicate with us. In general, the overall proceedings at each polling stations were running smoothly and homogeneously: each member of the committee seemed to understand his or her role well.

I had never believed that I would ever get to see any major incident mentioned in the OSCE forms and textbooks. It was even more surprising for me to witness an incident of “proxy voting”: an old woman filled out the ballot paper for her own husband who never walked into the booth. He stood outside of the booth when she walked in and I could see her hand with the first filled-out ballot reaching out from behind the curtain and exchanging it for the empty one he held in his hand. She filled out the second one inside the booth as well. I always imagined that “proxy voting” is something that happens in elections with a rather more chaotic setup or when the polling stations are overcrowded or in other

complex scenarios. I was the only one who spotted this incident, even though the rest of the 10-member committee was not impeded to observe the booths in any way. This was surely an isolated incident, but I was appalled with how quickly and easily something like this can be done without anybody noticing. It made me realize that committees should always be 100% fully on guard, which requires a lot of concentration from them.

On another note, I was surprised to see how much difference the electoral observation could actually make. I really felt that our presence was perceived and had certain impact on each committee. They seemed to me overall more attentive as if woken up from the lethargy of their monotonous day. Every now and then they gave us investigative looks and followed our eyes. In one polling station a middle-aged man walked very quickly, without any prior identification, into an occupied polling booth and started shouting at the younger man who was inside. The committee at first did not realize it and did not react, but as we were sitting in front of them literally “en face” and as we were observing the incident, they followed our eyes and realized what was happening. Only then did they order one of its members to intervene and guide the violator out. The committee would have likely reacted even if we had not been there, but we felt that our presence initiated their already slow reaction to the incident. It was also quite common to see little children let in with their parents in the booths, but at one polling station a very active committee chairman threw out a teenager accompanying his mother from the polling booth, just because he noticed that we were observing that booth in particular. The same chairman proactively placed in front of us a mobile ballot box with cast votes and happily demonstrated the sealing procedure.

3. Personal Impressions

All these were the moments where I felt that electoral observation does make a difference and that the AEGEE Electoral Observation Project can definitely contribute to local democratic processes.

However, there has been definitely more to the whole EOM mission, besides the possibility to participate in the e-day in another country. I particularly enjoyed the whole cultural exchange between young AEGEE members from all over Europe, the passion with which they learn languages and want to get to know the cultures of one another. I was happy to see Europeans who switch from their mother tongue to English, Spanish, German, Dutch or Italian and more, so fluently and several times a day without difficulties that it filled me with a lot of hope for the EU future. For example, at the end of the e-day when we gathered in a bar to share our experiences, a random young Italian man that we did not know approached us and started speaking fluent Czech (!) with me. He also mentioned that besides Estonian he studies Chinese as well, so I told him to address our Ukrainian colleague. At one moment, there was an Italian guy holding a conversation with a Ukrainian girl in Chinese language in the Estonian capital. Something so surreal that it made me feel ecstatic. All I thought was: This is Europe baby! Jana Bedanova


5.4 “Estonian Contrasts”

Milan Thies (Munster, Germany) When I decided to go to Estonia as an election observer I did not know much about the country. A former soviet republic that joined the EU in 2004 with a growing economy bordering Russia, Latvia and Finland. This lack of knowledge about an EU member state made the decision for me: I wanted to learn more about Estonian politics, culture and people. During my stay in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, there was one thing that impressed me the most: The deep contrasts in every part of Estonian society. As a symbol for that contrast I would like tell you about the architecture in Tallinn. Inside the centre of Tallinn you can see how medieval features are mixed with futuristic and modern glass constructions forming one new building. Looking at the town from outside you will even see more contrasts. Tallinn can be separated in 3 parts: There is the old town renewed with futuristic elements, the commercial centre surrounding the famous “Viru hotel” with its huge glass skyscraper and there are the surroundings of Tallinn made of old soviet blocks. Taking a look at the Estonian society one will notice the remaining issues between the Russian speaking and the Estonian speaking population of Estonia as a relict of soviet times on one hand and a progressive use of technology on the other hand. Apart from what people told me during the Election Observation Mission I noticed the unsettled issues when there were no Russian information materials present at the polling station on Election Day. However some of our observers saw a Russian information booklet that some districts distributed to their Russian speaking voters. There might therefore be a progress going on right now.

A good example of the use of technology in the Estonian society I would like to mention the new E-voting system as well as the multifunctual ID-cards the government introduced. Another aspect of the modern Estonian society that I noticed was that almost every habitant of Tallinn wears a reflector in order not to be hit by a car or bicycle. To sum it up I believe that my stay in Estonia taught me a lot about this country and I also believe that Estonia might be a role model for other states concerning E-governance. In any case it is worthwhile to observe the development of this interesting country not only during election period. Milan Thies, 10.3.2015


5.5 “Personal Report about my experiences during the EOM in Estonia”

Annekathrin Vietense (Koln, Germany) The parliamentary elections were held in Estonia on 1 March 2015. Advance voting was held between 19 and 25 February with a turnout of 33 percent. For the election they had 10 parties and 13 other candidates. Estonia is the first country with a national electronic election system. 150.000 people from 1.3 million voters used that system. We, as an international group of AEGEE students, took part of the Election Observation Project in Estonia. Our program started on 26th of February and took place in Tallinn. Some people arrived earlier to see something from Tallinn before. Our group was very international, students from Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine etc. For the project we spent 5 days together and we became very familiar. First we had some sightseeing tours with AEGEE Tallinn, our cooperation. They also organized a gym hall as an accommodation for us. We had rooms with beds, separate toilet and shower included. It was perfect, comfortable and we didn’t pay anything. So it is always great to have a good cooperation with the AEGEE home antenna. In the next days we had some presentations about the election in Estonia and we visited the Parliament in Tallinn. Further we spent one day in groups of 2 people each for planning the Election Day on 1 March 2015. That means we looked for an area we wanted to visit and searched for their polling stations. Every group had to visit 5 different polling stations. We also got Observation forms for filling in during the observation process of the election in every polling station. Before we started our observation we had a briefing from the Observers from OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) and the election commission.

During our “Election Observation Project” I was so glad to visit Tallinn and my Estonian friends again. I already visited Estonia in 2013. I did my ERASMUS exchange semester in Tallinn and stayed there for 8 months. So I know Tallinn and Estonia and their culture and people very well. I had such a great and memorable time with lots of experiences. I could practice my Estonian language again and to see Estonia in another perspective, was very interesting for me. I didn’t know so much about the election system in Estonia before. So it was great for me to learn more about it. Very special was, that they had polling stations in supermarkets. But if you are thinking about it, it is very easy and practical, to vote with the help of the electronic system in the internet or with a special Smartphone-App as well. So Estonia has a massive turnout of 63.5 percent.


Our planning days were sometimes very full but I enjoyed the time with our election observation group very much. In the end it was a feeling like a family. We were very mixed in cultures, age and gender. Every person had different skills. We had a very good teamwork with a lot of inspiration and great ideas. In the evenings we had some drinks and some good conversations about the day and our experiences. So we got to know each other more. AEGEE Tallinn organized also something with a nice dinner in a restaurant. They made our stay. I was also glad to show our group as a personal guide how beautiful the old town of Tallinn is and could give them some Insider Tips. For me the election observation project was a great possibility to visit Tallinn again and to get new experiences and learn more about the election procedures in Estonia. I am very happy that my colleagues could share with me almost the same impressions about Estonia and Estonian people. During our final feedback they mentioned among other things the fact that the Estonians are very friendly and warmly. I got the same feeling and it’s so great to hear it from other people again. The Mission in Tallinn was my first project for election observation but I want to participate definitely in some other election observations in future time. And hopefully we will meet each other again! Annekathrin Vietense


5.6 “A short footnote about ”trust”

Anna Pavani (Koln, Germany) It would be pretty ridiculous – I think - to pretend to have understood the deep essence of Estonia's political and social situation during the time we spent in Tallin; nevertheless I was impressed by the great amount of “thinking-inputs” each of us wanted to share with the rest of the group during our long debriefing on the day after the elections. With this spirit I would like to spend few words about a topic that absorbed my mind during the all EOM and that could be summarized by the concept “trust”. The background of each impression is of course influenced by the personal perspective and, to be short, I would say that it is difficult for an Italian citizen, as I am, to “trust” - and if you can, to trust completely – a voting system. The biggest challenge for such no-trusting people is of course the counting procedure. As I saw, after the closing, the blue ballot box standing alone in the middle of the room of the eucalyptus-smelling cultural center where we were observing, I started to think about the same situation in the polling station we visited in Sarajevo, where all present people were forced to go out (to smoke) and the chair-person closed the door, the windows and the building's door as well to “protect” the box. As the members started to divide the small ballot-papers, the A3- ballot papers of Bosnia, that needed to be “opened” like a newspaper, came across my mind. I also started to think about the big amount of people – polling station's members and partisan obverses – that surrounded the huge table and were looking carefully at the ballots in order to “discover” the voter's cross. In our polling station in Tallin there were no partisan observers at all and each member of the team worked individually and silent. For the counting of the ballots it was enough that 2 different members counted the ballots that had to be put in an envelop with the number of the candidate.

In Sarajevo the counting was a collective “ceremony” with all members and observers “singing” together the numbers (allowing our entire group to learn how to count in this difficult language). As we asked an Estonian PEC member, a really helpful girl, how can they be sure, that that was “sure” enough, she answered “that's why we counted twice!”. And then she added: “we hope that we have done no mistakes”. And that was the magic word that allowed me to understand the background of her perspective: a mistake is not intentionally. With the intention of counting correctly each person can of course forget a ballot or getting confused, but what you want is something else. I'm sure that the PEC members of Sarajevo wanted to be transparent as well but of course the underling intention the big amount of partisan observers ascribed to them was the opposite. Apart from the comparison, what caught my attention in the observations in Tallin was the assumption of correct behavior, the expectation of correctness in the way other people act. I called it at the beginning “trust”. Because of my ignorance I'm not able (and I also don't want) to judge, if this trust was and is well founded or not. I would only like to share some kind of thankfulness I felt for having seen the real, concrete possibility to participate in something people are able (and want) to trust. Anna Pavani


5.7 “Beyond language’s barriers: the PEC members and their helpfulness”

Antonella Luisi (Bologna, Italy)

It took just a couple of hours to get to Tartu, the night before the Election Day. A gloomy weather was waiting for us, and as well “a short guy with green scarf” (the best host ever!). The second biggest city of Estonia was ready to show itself and Maud and I, even on Election Day, took our chance of enjoying it and getting in touch with its people. 8 AM: we were already on our way to the first polling station. It was in a shopping mall (as most of the other polling stations), a big modern building, close to the small colored houses of the city center. In this station, as in all the others we visited, we found a precise arrangement. However, it was not only the placement in the room, which let us have a perfect overview of the electing process: we were able to monitor almost all the steps especially thanks to the help of the PEC members. In fact, even when language barriers emerged as an obstacle, all officers tried anyway to answer our questions and not to interfere with our tasks. In no way did they proved to be skeptical when two young girls like us, coming from different countries, got in the stations and closely monitored their tasks. What really impressed me was the willingness of the chair, of our last polling station, to ask for assistance of some young voters, as interpreters for our questions. They soon started to ask questions to us as well, without hiding their curiosity. The role of observer, in fact, was not really well known in Tartu. Actually, during the day, we met no other observers, neither international nor domestic, in all the six stations we visited. The helpfulness of the officers showed also clear in the counting process when one of the PEC members, despite the busy moment, always reported to us what they were doing, and tried to clear up all the kinds of doubts we had, without neglecting his task at all.

The counting process lasted a couple of hours, few minutes after eleven we were on our way back to the accommodation. In the living room of my host’s home, the TV was turned on; in a television studio some journalists were commenting the results of the elections. And, behind colored bar graphs, numbers and percentages, I could see the work of thousands of PEC members.

Antonella Luisi


5.8 “Discovering Europe”

Robert Netzband (Goerzke, Germany)

Truly astonishing about Europe, even amazing to me, is our cultural diversity, our historic heritage and the linkage between the countries on this continent. Going to Tallinn via Riga and moving further north to Helsinki entirely fulfilled this intuition. I was amazed how all three countries could preserve and unfold their own cultures, all three even have an own language. Moreover, all of this in a zone of only 400 km and yet these countries are good neighbors, prosper economically, live together in peace; united on a common ground, united in the European Union. Initially this journey started in the form of a Call for an Election Observation Mission, an opportunity I really wanted to use to also discovering the outermost, northeast, corridor of Europe. On the contrary, going on such a Mission to Estonian is presumably something one will not do too often. These prospective made a decision quite easy, but, admittedly, I had not too much of an idea what I was applying for. Obviously, one will get prepared; you would read different handbooks, inform yourself and take an OSCE- preparatory course to become a Short-Term Observer, STO. Nevertheless, at the end all the things I learned only signaled the path to take during the mission. After the first days in Estonia, the Election Day arrived and I started to walk this path. Only then and in the days to follow I was able to perceive wherein the work of an observer in its innermost really is constituted of. Consulting a dictionary you will read: “to observe: to watch somebody/ something carefully, especially to learn more about them”. Even if trivial, of course this is what an STO is doing too, but the significance lies in the act of learning about a country. Election Day, we got up early in the morning, to arrive at the first polling station bevor opening, so we could oversee the first steps of the Election. After a long bus ride our Dutch- German group arrived around 8:00 in Viimsi, a suburban town not too far from

Tallinn, after having breakfast -thanks to a supermarket- we explored the city and the proximity of the polling station in more detail. Half an hour before the station opened our group entered the sport hall and after some time very friendly election officials welcomed us and provided support for our observation tasks. The following hours differed not much, the stations changed between new and chic town halls to old and decrepit sport halls, but the people stayed the same, kind and helpful. It was formidable to see how everyone was trying with sometimes only little English to be supportive, even if this was -to such an extent- not part of their job descriptions. One occurrences made an especially profound impression on me, particularly if seeing it in the bigger historic context. Estonia was one of the many countries that was occupied by Nazi -Germany, an occupation that was superseded by an integration into the Soviet State. Around midday of Election Day we meet a quite old woman, she did not speak English, but came to cast her vote and after doing so, she asked an official and us what we were doing at this station. After explain our mission, the women asked where we are from, seemed sincerely interested in our work and wished us all the best. Such a warm welcome, by someone that witnessed also times other foreigners “observed” Estonians, demonstrates some trust. Moreover, it also demonstrates how far we have come with the European integration process.


In brief, it was the extended amount of time and the many different parts of Estonia we got to see that truly brought us beyond a simple act of observing. First, during the days we stayed in Estonia and especially during Election Day we got a sneak but intense view about Estonian culture and people. Second, something quite special was allowed to us, which displays the confidence of the Estonian people in their democratic system and towards the European people; we were allowed to view the voters during the most sacred event in every democracy, the raising of the voice by the people, for the people. To welcome us like friends, to allow us like equals to accompany this election and to share the culture of this great country, just shows how far we have grown together in Europe, but also how much there is to discover. Robert Netzband

All pictures, where author is not mentioned were made by EOM Team on their personal cameras or phones


There are presented an articles about our mission published by external resources.

6.1 Press-release, published by AEGEE - Young Europeans observing Estonian elections with record turnout

Original link - http://aegee.blogactiv.eu/2015/03/02/estonian-election-observation/

At the end of February AEGEE-Europe

deployed 22 observers to Tallinn in order to

cover the thirteenth parliamentary election of

the republic of Estonia. The mission’s primary

aim was to observe the elections and give a

general assessment. In pairs of two, the

observers visited over 60 polling stations

located in Tallinn, its surroundings and in the

country’s second city, Harju county and Tartu.

Unique to Estonia is the possibility to vote

online, but given the specifics involved, the

mission limited themselves itself to observation

of the standard procedure in which ballot papers

are used.

Our overall assessment is that the Riigikogu

elections were very well organized, from

the opening of the polling stations to the closing

and counting procedures. Taking into account

previous experiences of the observers group,

they were impressed by the organisation,

conduct and good will observed during these

elections. Isolated procedural irregularities were

noticed, as well as some inconsistencies

concerning counting and sealing procedures.

There were some misunderstandings between

members of the Polling Stations and

our observers. This was mainly due to a lack of

awareness on the side of the PEC members of

what observation means and what observers do.

All these irregularities were few and far

between and they were not in any way

intentional. Any irregularities on behalf of the

voters were handled quickly, calmly and

professionally, in accordance to the protocols.

In Estonia, there is a significant Russian-

speaking minority. Observers were curious as to

how and if this would influence the elections.

Some of the observers were deployed in areas

were Russian speakers are very numerous and

others were deployed in predominantly Estonian

regions. It was interesting to see if any visible

differences between voting procedures in these

regions were observed. Observations differed

from region to region. Principally, the election

materials are only available in Estonian. Only in

a few cases Russian election materials were

observed. However, most of the PEC members

had a sufficient knowledge of the Russian

language and were willing to help or assist

when necessary.

A high degree of helpfulness from PEC

members was encountered. None of the

members of the election observation mission

were impeded in their observations and as such

they had a clear view of the procedures in the

Polling Stations.

Taking everything observed into account, we as

AEGEE-Europe’s observers state that

the parliamentary elections of the first of

March, 2015 were remarkably well organised,

transparent and conducted in an attentive and

helpful manner.

http://aegee.blogactiv.eu/2015/03/02/estonian-election-observation/

http://aegee.blogactiv.eu/files/2015/03/riigikogu.jpg


6.2 Euronews article with tweets made by EOM team!

Twitter, in my opinion is one of the most efficient social networks (if not the first). Our observers used it to share their impressions during the observation day. And some of them was so well-directed, that even Euronews agencies used them to make their publication! Thanks for Cono Giardullo(@conogiardullo) and Viktor Bezhenar (@vityawassup)

Original link - http://www.euronews.com/2015/03/01/estonia-votes-in-election-amid-concerns-over-russia/

https://twitter.com/conogiardullo

https://twitter.com/vityawassup


6.3 "Es ist unglaublich schwer, neutral zu bleiben" by jetzt.de

Original link - http://jetzt.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/592094/Es-ist-unglaublich-schwer-neutral-zu-bleiben

Was macht man eigentlich so als Wahlbeobachter? Der Italiener Cono, 28, weiß es - er war kürzlich in Estland. Hier erzählt er, wie man überprüft, ob alles mit demokratischen Dingen zugeht.

Beim Election Observation Project reist eine Gruppe

junger Europäer fünf Tage in ein europäisches Land,

in dem gerade Wahlen stattfinden. Organisiert wird

das Ganze vom europäischen

Studentennetzwerk AEGEE, mitmachen kann jeder,

der zwischen 18 und 35 Jahren alt ist, in einem

europäischen Land wohnt und fließend Englisch

spricht. Das alles traf auf Cono Giardullo (28) aus

Rom zu, der uns von seinen Beobachtungen in

Estland erzählt hat:

"Es fühlt sich ein bisschen an wie ein kurzer

Erasmus-Aufenthalt."

„Bei Wahlen in meinem Heimatland Italien

verbringt man maximal fünf Minuten in einem

Wahllokal, da ist Wählen fast ein bisschen lästig. Du

hoffst, dass es keine Schlange vor dem Lokal gibt

und willst so schnell wie möglich wieder raus. Wenn

du aber Wahlen als Wahlbeobachter siehst,

beginnst du zu verstehen, welche Macht wir an der

Wahlurne ausüben. Was der Satz „Der Souverän ist

das Volk“ wirklich bedeutet. Du sprichst mit

Einheimischen, mit unterschiedlichen Ethnizitäten,

Alter und sozialem Status über die jeweilige

Landespolitik und Europa. Du lernst deine Nachbarn

kennen. Diese Erfahrung sollte jeder Europäer

einmal machen.

Anfang März durfte ich als Wahlbeobachter bei den estnischen Parlamentswahlen in Tallin teilnehmen. Dabei habe ich nicht nur viel über Demokratie und das Wählen an sich gelernt, sondern auch über das Land selbst. In Tallin hat die Stadtverwaltung dafür gesorgt, dass wir Wahlbeobachter kostenlose Unterkünfte bekamen – das ist großartig, weil das Projekt bislang auf freiwilliger Basis ohne irgendeine finanzielle Unterstützung läuft. Durch

den direkten Kontakt zu den Esten und gemeinsame Aktivitäten wie eine Stadtführung und einen Parlamentsbesuch ist das also auch Kulturaustausch: Es fühlte sich ein bisschen an, wie ein kurzer Erasmus-Aufenthalt. Fast alle Wahlbeoachtungs-Missionen von AEGEE fanden bislang in Ländern wie der Ukraine oder in Bosnien und Moldavien statt, also in Ländern, die keine „perfekten Demokratien“ sind, wo es Mängel im Wahlprozess gibt. Das war jetzt in Estland anders. Da hatten wir von Beginn an hohe Erwartungen an die Wahlstandards, weil das Land dem Demokratieindex nach bei 9.5 von 10 Punkten geführt ist. Estland ist außerdem das einzige Land, das ein nationales elektronisches Wahlsystem hat. Bei dieser Wahl beteiligten sich 150.000 Menschen von 1,3 Millionen Wählern auf dem elektronischen Weg. 2005 waren es nur 10.000. Elektronisch bedeutet, dass es sogar so einfach ist, dass du per Smartphone-App wählen kannst. Es gab aber zum Beispiel auch Wahllokale im Supermarkt. Das war anfangs etwas komisch für mich, aber man erklärte uns, dass das für die Leute eine Hürde weniger ist, wählen zu gehen. Und das merkt man auch an der Wahlbeteiligung: Die lag bei 63,5 Prozent – das ist ein sehr guter Durchschnittswert im Vergleich zu anderen europäischen Wahlen.

http://www.projects.aegee.org/eop/

http://www.aegee.org/


Was tun wir auf so einer Mission nun genau? Wir treffen uns meistens an einem Donnerstag mit etwa 20 anderen jungen Europäern in dem Land, wo die Wahl stattfindet und bereiten uns auf den Wahltag, meistens den Sonntag, vor. Das heißt wir sprechen mit Wahlbeobachtern der Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (OSZE) und der Wahlbehörde, die uns über die Langzeitbeobachtung im Vorfeld briefen und lernen die politische Stadt kennen, dabei hilft uns oft die lokale AEGEE-Hochschulgruppe vor Ort. Am Wahltag selbst gehen wir in Zweierteams in etwa sechs Wahllokale – manche Teams schaffen aber auch zwölf. Die Teams bestehen aus Personen mit unterschiedlichem Geschlecht, Nationalität und Alter. Als Italiener kann ich eine ganz andere Sichtweise auf das Auszählen und den Wahlprozess haben, als mein deutscher Kollege, deswegen müssen wir uns in jedem Formular, das wir ausfüllen, auf ein Ergebnis einigen.

"Es ist unglaublich schwer, neutral zu

bleiben."

Wir verwenden auch genau dieselben Formulare wie die Wahlbeobachter der OSZE. Wir prüfen zu Beginn alle Wählerlisten, Umschläge, die Urnen und die Kabinen und schauen, ob das Wahllokal pünktlich geöffnet hat. Danach achtet man mehr auf die Abläufe, also ob die Ausweise geprüft werden, das Personal seinen Aufgaben nachkommt, das Wahlgeheimnis gewahrt wird oder die Stimmabgabe in irgendeiner Form überwacht wird. Im dritten Schritt beobachten wir das Schließen der Wahllokale und den Auszählungsprozess der Stimmzettel, also ob es Unstimmigkeiten gibt und auch wie die Übergabe an die Bezirks-Wahlkommission abläuft. Interessant ist, dass wir auch in jedem Formular angeben müssen, wie viele andere Beobachter da waren und ob man uns in den Wahllokalen alle Fragen beantwortet hat.

Es ist unglaublich schwer immer nur der Beobachter zu sein, neutral zu bleiben und nicht zu kommentieren. Auch wenn eine kleine Unregelmäßigkeit auffällt, also zum Beispiel zwei Leute auf einmal in einer Kabine sind, darf man nicht intervenieren, muss unparteiisch bleiben. Unsere Aufgabe ist es zu notieren und zu berichten, nicht den Wahlprozess zu unterstützen. Generell war die Wahl in Estland sehr frei und fair. Die Esten sprechen sehr gutes Englisch, in manchen Wahllokalen war es aber etwas schwierig zu kommunizieren und wir haben auch sprachliche Schwierigkeiten für die russische Minderheit, die 25 Prozent der Bevölkerung ausmacht, festgestellt: Dadurch, dass es fast keine Wahlunterlagen auf Russisch gab, hatten die es etwas schwerer die Abläufe und das Wahlsystem zu verstehen, das haben wir in unserem Bericht notiert. Das Projekt ist die erste Möglichkeit für junge Menschen so etwas zu erleben, ohne Erfahrungen in der Wahlbeobachtung mitbringen zu müssen, deshalb will ich unbedingt wieder dabei sein. Nächstes Mal am liebsten in Aserbaidschan oder Belarus.“ Die nächste Wahlbeobachungs-Mission geht Mitte April nach Finnland, weitere nach Großbritannien und in die Türkei folgen. Dem Projekt und allen Beobachten kann man auf Twitter folgen unter @eop_aegee

http://www.projects.aegee.org/eop/?page_id=298



https://twitter.com/eop_aegee

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