One must admire the Estonians. Despite silly suggestions from some of their politicians the Estonians were the first to launch the flat tax revolution and they are also leading the world in the field of e-government and mobile government.

E-government means that most government paperwork is eliminated and government operations are conducted through the Internet and in electronic form. Estonia’s ministers come to the cabinet meetings with their laptops and authorise documents with an electronic signature. This is said to have already saved the government 200,000 euro in paper and photocopies.

E-government has not only reduced the amount of paper but has also created much more transparency and accountability: proposed laws are placed on the Internet so that citizens can see proposals for laws before they are fully phrased, allowing them to comment before the laws are voted upon. Ministerial cabinet decisions appear on the Internet minutes after they have been taken, while citizens can deal directly with the administration's "back office" without having to go through an intermediate civil servant. In 2004 76% of Estonian taxpayers filled in their tax form through the Internet.

54% of the Estonians between 6 and 74 years, and 90% of those between 6 and 24 years, regularly use the Internet. Though only 34% of the 1.4 million inhabitants of Estonia own a computer with Internet access at home, every Estonian can freely access the Internet through government-provided e-facilities in public libraries, hotels, schools and even pubs. The country has signposts indicating the nearest Internet access point.

Mobile government, or m-government, is the use by governments (local or national) of innovative information technologies and various service delivery channels in addition to the wired World Wide Web.

Next Sunday E-stonia will be holding municipal elections. For the first time in the world voters will be able to cast their votes through the Internet. That possibility, however, only exists for the 800,000 Estonians who already own an ID-card which can be read digitally. After having cast his vote the e-voter can change his mind until the closing hour of the elections on Sunday evening. Because voters without digital ID-cards cannot do this Estonian president Rüüdel objected to the introduction of e-voting. According to the president the voters are no longer treated equally. The president’s objections, however, were overruled in court.

According to a survey 21% of the voters are expected to cast their votes electronically.