Ulaanbaatar
Mongolia Studies Online Voting Possibilities for Overseas Voters
Society
Ulaanbaatar, May 7, 2025 /MONTSAME/. In order to ensure that Mongolian citizens residing abroad are able to fully exercise their constitutional right to vote and to enhance electoral participation, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation, and Communications of Mongolia is examining international best practices in electronic voting. Concurrently, efforts are being made to incorporate provisions for electronic voting into the Law on the Election and to ensure the accessibility and preparedness of the necessary technological infrastructure.
For instance, in 2024, the Ministry studied the experience of Estonia, which was the first to introduce an electronic voting system and this time it will observe and study the election process in the Philippines. The 2025 Philippine General Election will be held on May 12 and the country's Commission on Elections started internet voting of 1.2 million overseas voters in 77 countries on April 13, 2025. Preliminary registration was conducted online and end-to-end verifiable system and blockchain technology-based data protection were used to ensure the confidentiality of votes.
Overseas Mongolians forwarded requests to vote in the parliamentary elections since 2000, and in 2012 they were enabled to vote. However, it was inconvenient for them to register and vote in person at the diplomatic mission of the country, which was the reason for the low voter turnout. In the 2020 Elections of the State Great Khural of Mongolia, 3,200 Mongolians living abroad voted out of 4,600 registered. During last year’s parliamentary elections, 13,095 overseas voters out of over 200,000 Mongolians living in more than 80 countries were registered online for the first time, and 50 percent cast their ballots. Compared to the 2020 Elections, although online registration was successful, in-person voting at polling places impacted the voter turnout.
As of 2023, more than 10 countries around the world conducted or tested online voting for their overseas voters.
