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Remote Internet voting places the control and secrecy of the immediate voting environment on the shoulder of the individual voter but it also turns voting into yet another on-line activity thus endangering the well-known social nature of voting and possibly reducing the crucial sense of civic duty that is important for a healthy democracy. There is however a complete lack of evidence to what degree this actually materializes once electronic voting is introduced. This paper uses individual level log data on Internet voting in Estonian elections between 2013–2015 to inspect if Internet voting retains the social nature of the voting act. We do so by examining if Internet voting in groups takes place and what implications it has for voting speed. We find strong evidence of e-voting in pairs. Same aged male-female pairs seem to be voting in close proximity to each other, consistent with spouses or partners voting together. Also, female-female and female-male pairs with large age differences seem to be voting together, consistent with a parent voting with an adult aged offspring. With regards to voting speed we see the second vote in a vote pair being considerably faster than the first vote, again indicating a shared voting act. We end with a discussion of how the onset of electronic voting does not make elections less social, but does make vote secrecy more a choice rather than a requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about posttraumatic stress (PTS) reactions in bereaved individuals following loss in disaster who were not directly exposed to disaster. The aim of the present study was to examine the course of PTS up to three years after losing relatives in the MS Estonia ferry disaster, one of the worst maritime disasters in modern times. Methods: Seven postal surveys were sent out over three years post-disaster. The respondents were invited and added consecutively during the three years and 938 relatives participated in one or more of the surveys, representing 89% of the MS Estonia’s Swedish victims. The survey included the Impact of Event Scale (IES) to measure PTS. Latent growth curve modeling was used to analyze PTS over time. Results: The majority of bereaved individuals had high levels of PTS. At three years post-loss, 62% of the respondents scored above the recommended cut-off value on the IES. Over time, PTS symptoms declined, but initially high symptoms of PTS were associated with a slower recovery rate. Conclusion: The present finding suggests that being an indirectly-exposed disaster-bereaved close-relative can lead to very high levels of PTS which are sustained for several years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]