Comments on: Electronic voting: putting voters first

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Agreed, this is a better system; OCR counting. It’s trivial for a “verification” group to verify the numbers using the physical ballots afterwards, too.

BTW 1 core complaint that e-voting purports to solve, is falling voter turnout figures; IMO adding electronic voting kiosks to the *existing* voting stations won’t make a difference there at all, as the voters still need to get to the polling booth on time on 1 day as before.

One idea I’ve heard, is using SMS to vote. It’s occurred to me that this could be made reasonably safe, by making it a subscription-required service; ie. you have to “subscribe” in advance, possibly by post or email, to register your phone number as connected with your name and address; then when you vote, it *calls you back* afterwards, with an automated menu system, and you must confirm (by e.g. pressing “1″) that you wished to make that vote. This protects against impersonation (if an attacker can fake the caller ID data through technical means), and also protects against attackers voting with stolen phones (if the phone was not registered beforehand).

However, stolen phones that were already registered can still be used; and it does not protect against voter intimidation (ie. your hired muscle menaces someone until they take out their phone and votes for you) — which is one of those things that was happening not too long ago in the North, after all.

By: Timothy Murphy

Timothy Murphy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In my opinion, the dangers of electronic voting
are ludicrously exaggerated.
Obviously everything possible should be done
to make e-voting secure and reliable,
and in particular I would strongly favour
an open source solution, by which I mean
that the source code of all programs used
should be made publicly available.

The steady fall in the percentage voting
in almost every democracy
is a far more serious matter
than the extremely improbable ocurrence
of computer fraud in e-voting.

Electronic voting — including voting by phone
or by television — offers the possibility
in the long term not just of reversing
the fall in voting numbers,
but also of extending voting
to a far wider range of issues.

This has never been possible
since the introduction of democracy
in ancient Greece, until now.

By: Antoin O Lachtnain

Antoin O Lachtnain — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

An SMS-based vote would not be a secret ballot, because you would be able to disclose your vote to another person before you sent it. This leaves the system wide open to vote-buying and extortion.

By: David Stewart

David Stewart — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote about this issue the other day on my own blog. My main thesis is that anyone can verify a piece of paper. By introducing computerised voting you move the process into the hands of a technological elite. I’m not sure this is something you want to do without instituting some form of checks and balances.

By: roj

roj — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

electronic voting IS a hot issue here in my local area. a local university (Johns Hopkins) released a study a short while ago on the system that the state (Maryland) committed to buying (at a cost of some $50+ million) and implementing state-wide by 2004. this has produced some back-tracking by the state, ordering a third party review of the system. even the neighbors are into the issue now, with Virginia making some ripples on the issue.

this should give you some interesting places to go with the subject. happy hunting…

By: Brian White

Brian White — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

There are about 60,000 windows viruses. And you are going to use a ms product?
There IS no security.
AND even if the source code of the voting software is revealed, the attacker can manipulate the results using ms backdoors. Why do you think the government of China, the USA, etc wants to see bits of the windows source code. To get re elected prehaps?
IN FACT,wouldnt a great us software company might help out its friends in ireland with votes in return for favours?
U have got to have have hardcopy of the votes.
Otherwise it cannot be reviewed if something goes wrong. Another point is a referendum. U have to have one on something like this. FF tried to change the election before to the good old english system. and the electorate rejected it.
AND changing to electronic voting IS changing the system. Lots of people diliberately spoil their votes. INDEED thats why they go to vote. Remember dustin in dublin in the Mary Robinson election?
He beet Austin Curry in some places. And believe it or not that is important!
Another flaw is the none of the above option. Where is it? In a 5 seater if all the candidates are crap or corrupt, you should be able to elect an empty seat. In a propper system, this gives a better measure of political eptitude than anything.
Anyway, where is the referendum?
Brian White
Victoria
Canada

By: Thady Quill

Thady Quill — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Electronic voting is fine but …

the system proposed for use in Ireland is not fine at all …

the list of problems begins with the philosophy the politicians and beaufrocrats seem to be more interested in administrative convenience than in electoral transparency and accuracy.

see * http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie *
and * http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie/report *
and * http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/oct02/evot.html *

for some specifics of electronic voting issues.

Meanwhile we should ‘if in doubt – do nowt!

thanks.

Thady

By: Blood Pressure

Blood Pressure — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

blood pressure