Czech parliamentary elections hit by digital ID app failure

The head of the Czech agency in charge of the country’s national digital identity says he would offer his resignation after a slew of technical problems prevented users from using the system for voting during the recent 2025 parliamentary elections.

Martin Mesršmíd, director of the Digital and Information Agency, said that the office underestimated demand for voting through the eDoklady electronic ID, causing the system to crash last Friday. The crash happened after polling stations opened on the first day of the elections for members of the lower house of the Czech Parliament, ultimately won by ANO, the party of populist billionaire Andrej Babiš.

The system received a large load of 1.5 million requests, which it could not handle, according to Mesršmíd.

“We increased capacity several times during the day, but the actual load was half to two-thirds higher than our estimates,” he says.

The service was finally stabilized by Friday evening and fully restored on Saturday. Meanwhile, voters were invited to use traditional plastic ID cards or passports to approach polling booths.

This was the first time Czechs were allowed to vote using the eDoklady (eDocuments) system, first rolled out in January 2024. Currently, around 800,000 people have an active eDoklady account.

Users were warned that they must update the digital ID on their phones within 48 hours before use, but some voters reported troubles updating the app, according to news outlet Seznam Zprávy.

Article Topics

Czech Republic  |  digital identity  |  e-ID  |  eDoklady  |  elections  |  national ID