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Estonia's shadow elections results published

Estonian National Youth Council (Eesti Noorteühenduste Liit)
6th of March 2011
PRESSRELEASE

Estonia's shadow elections results published

Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) published yesterday evening the results of the country wide elections simulation, which brought almost 3000 14 till 17 year olds to vote for Parliament elections.

2733 youngsters in the age of 14 till 17 years participated in the parliament elections internet voting simulation.

"From the total age group shadow electorate constituted 4,8 per cent but in reality the percentage is higher as we don't have the overview yet, how many citizens we have in that age group and currently the percentage is calculated from all the young people in that age group, including the youth without Estonian citizenship," says ENL's shadow elections project manager Mailis Ostra.

ENL is expecting to get the latest data within this week and with the help of Estonian National Electoral Committee also to form shadow Parliament.

Ostra is convinced that not only the voting simulation participation rate is the measurement of youth interest, but also active participation in other shadow elections activities such as debates, student competitions, simulation games and so on. All in total approximately 10 000 young people participated in the project activities directly.

Estonia with its population of 1,3 million was the first country to adapt electronic voting as an alternative to the traditional voting and Estonians have been electronically electing since 2005. This real internet elections resulted this year with almost 150 000 voters (15,4 per cent of all the electorate).

"In 2005 in the local elections when Estonians could vote electronically for the first time, the participation percentage in internet elections was only 0,9 per cent and now it's already 15,4 per cent. Even though we hoped for higher voting participation in the shadow elections, the result is not bad as we organized shadow elections for the first time all over Estonia," explains Ostra.

The most popular candidate among young people was social democrat Sven Mikser, the prime minister Andrus Ansip form liberal The Reform Party followed and Urmas Paet (The Reform Party) was the thirs most popular candidate.

The most popular party among the 14-17 year olds was The Reform Party which collected 33,81 per cent of shadow electors votes, the second most popular party among shadow elections voters was the centre-right Pro Patria and Res Publica Union. Social democrats gathered 22,47 per cent of shadow electors votes, green party gathered 8,53 %, popular central party Keskerakond gathered 5,38 per cent and single candidates all in total gathered 2,01 per cent.

The two main differences from the real elections was the success of the greens in shadow elections, who did not get to the parliament this year and the results of the central party Keskerakond, who reached the second result in real elections but was only 5th in shadow elections.

From the smaller parties Estonian Independence Party gathered 0,55 per cent from the youth shadow elections votes, Estonian People's Party 1, 72 per cent, Christian Democrats 0,66 per cent and Russian Party in Estonia 0,33 per cent. None of these parties reached the parliament also in real elections.

More specific statistics can be found in shadow elections web page (in Estonian): http://www.varivalimised.ee. Presentation file with graphics can also be downloaded from here!

Shadow elections is politically independent civic project for the youth aged 14 till 20 years in order to motivate youth to participate in political issues more actively and to make youth voice more heard in the society. In the project frame youth debates, creative competition for students and simulation games take place. From 25th of February till 3d of March all 14-17 year old Estonian citizens could participate in electronic elections simulations and choose between the Parliament candidates.

The project is funded by EU Program Youth in Action, Open Estonia Foundation, Nation Foundation of Civic Society, Estonian Ministry of the Interior, Gambling Tax Fund. Project's media partner is Estonian National Broadcasting.

Photo material can be found from here: http://www.enl.ee/et/Galeriid/Varivalimised2009-2011

More information:
Meelika Jürisaar
Estonian National Youth Council
Public Relations Officer
GSM: +372 50 41 258
E-mail: meelika@enl.ee
www.enl.ee
www.varivalimised.ee 

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