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audit trails and security systems will be in place to verify that the software used in production is identical to the tested and audited software, and to verify that the data actually counted is the data cast by voters in polling places.

Don't kid yourself: open source is nice, but it doesn't guarantee a fault-proof or secure voting system (suppose somebody installs wrong or malicious software on one of the machines?).

I don't see how this Australian system is any more trustworthy than Diebold, ES&S, or Sequoia's systems (the latter three are all based on proprietary software). There's no voter verifiable audit trail (which is a showstopper) and yet, to read the review in the article, Software Improvements has apparently bamboozled people into trusting their work.

It looks like this Wired article gives an unjustified glowing review to a system whose accuracy can never be tested after the election. It looks to me like the reviewer (like so many programmers) gets caught up in the software being available for inspection.

If someone wanted to rig an election, they'd be wise to do what this Australian firm is doing: go through the motions to gain people's trust and then make sure there's no accountability in the system so nobody can second-guess your results (the firm even talks about how there's no voter verifiable audit trail because it is unneeded and not required by the 1992 voting law). We are fortunate Diebold has been so brazen about propping up President Bush and so hamfisted about stopping the leaked memos from propagating. Their actions give opponents a chance to be heard and say what a good voting system needs in order to be worthy of our trust.

How did this article overlook these glaring faults and conclude these "Aussies [are] do[ing] it right"? Is there some kind of financial relationship between Wired's owners (Conde Nast publications) and the Australian voting company?

It's GPLed and available to download at this link:

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/evacs.tar.gz

So, if you want to get started advocating an open e-voting system for your neck of the woods or an alternative to Diebold, then you can get started now.

If you want to push printed receipts, I'm sure you can hire someone who could write an interface to a little thermal printer via the COM ports.

Don't panic. It isn't on the company's website, it's on the ACT Electoral commission's website - the tar.gz is here, linked from this page.

Don't panic. It isn't on the company's website, it's on the ACT Electoral commission's website - the tar.gz is here, linked from this page.

Official numbers are suspicious, since Pinochet still has imunnity in his country, but the majoity of sources I heard of speaks in 30,000

http://www.hansard.act.gov.au/hansard/1998/week08/ 2337.htm

http://www.thenewpress.com/newbooks/condor.htm

http://www.uoregon.edu/~caguirre/382_13.html

A complete explanation on how it has been done in at least one place outside the USA is available on the web.

Interestingly, if you read the whole pdf report linked to, it shows a distinct trend for Greens and Democrats to use e-Voting rather than the paper alternative.

Oh yes, and this system has been mentioned quite a few times in /. comments for the last 2 years.

Not really sure what you accomplished with the smart cards, but if you are after open source software then no need to write it, just get it from here.

Apparently Australia is paving the way here. eVACS, as I learned from another poster, is open-source and was used in the Australian Capital Territory elections in 2001. I think a great start would be to have some federal or state IT workers adapt it for use here in the states, and test it out in small-scale elections. Maybe by 2008 we'll be able to vote via the web, and we'll see lots more voter turnout and it'll be impossible to rig the election. A guy can dream...

Apparently Australia is paving the way here. eVACS, as I learned from another poster, is open-source and was used in the Australian Capital Territory elections in 2001. I think a great start would be to have some federal or state IT workers adapt it for use here in the states, and test it out in small-scale elections. Maybe by 2008 we'll be able to vote via the web, and we'll see lots more voter turnout and it'll be impossible to rig the election. A guy can dream...

There's an open-source electronic voting system, that is compiled on an open-source compiler, and runs on an open-source operating system, on standard commercial hardware.

It's called eVACS and was used in the Australian Capital Territory elections in 2001. More details (AND SOURCE CODE) available at the ACT Electoral Commission website.

Or you could just look at any of the past /. posts. Maybe if I post the same data often enough, someone might just read it and take notice. But then, the election didn't happen in the USA, so maybe not. *SIGH*

DISCLAIMER : I work for the mob that made it. 6 months from contract signature to the election, total cost to make less than $150,000 USD. I wasn't on the development team though, too busy making spaceflight avionics. But They Did Good.

That link should have been
http://www.elections.act.gov.au/EVACS.html.
Sor ry

The source for an australian e-voting system is available online

Sorry, I'm a little peeved at writing the same darn URLs every time this comes up.

• Technical description by the ACT Electoral Commission
• Comments by a user in the Australian Computer Society on how the system worked in practice.
• Executive Summary of how it worked.
• 1 MB PDF full report.
• And finally.... The Source

Sorry, I'm a little peeved at writing the same darn URLs every time this comes up.

• Technical description by the ACT Electoral Commission
• Comments by a user in the Australian Computer Society on how the system worked in practice.
• Executive Summary of how it worked.
• 1 MB PDF full report.
• And finally.... The Source

Sorry, I'm a little peeved at writing the same darn URLs every time this comes up.

• Technical description by the ACT Electoral Commission
• Comments by a user in the Australian Computer Society on how the system worked in practice.
• Executive Summary of how it worked.
• 1 MB PDF full report.
• And finally.... The Source

Sorry, I'm a little peeved at writing the same darn URLs every time this comes up.

• Technical description by the ACT Electoral Commission
• Comments by a user in the Australian Computer Society on how the system worked in practice.
• Executive Summary of how it worked.
• 1 MB PDF full report.
• And finally.... The Source

Xix.

More significantly, the water processing and sewerage treatment plans were both knocked out, threatening to cause the flow of sewerage into water storage facilities. Imagine the capital of Australia with no fresh water or sewerage for a minute.

Anyway, Mount Stromlo, which was destroyed, is visible on the map, and i've included a section of the Bush Fire Brigade Map which shows the region and the fires.

Updates on the situation can be found here.

Check out this web site. It lists a set of phone numbers for information about evacuations etc. You can also check with the Australian Embassy in the US.

For those interested, most of the damage was caused not by regular fires, but by a "firestorm", burning embers raining down from the sky. This caused hundreds of spot fires around the suburbs, and in inaccessible areas, gaps between houses and fences, in power poles. This type of fire (this large) has never happened in Australia before.

For those blaming fire services for not being fast enough, some facts:

* The Canberra fire forces are equipped to deal with SIX house fires at the same time.
* Over FOUR HUNDRED homes have been destroyed.
Many more fires have burned and been put out by residents using garden hoses and garden tools.
Even those of you without a calculator can probably see where the problem lies.
Some suburbs have lost access to water completely, with water station pumps burned out.
One power station has been completely razed, residents in that area may be without power for a month or more.
Several fire engines and police cars have been lost, roads are blocked by fallen trees and power lines, some of which are on fire.
Firefighters have been out saving other people's homes while their own burned to the ground.
A fire station itself caught fire, and no engines went to put it out, as people's homes were still in danger.

Give them some credit for putting their lives and homes on the line, to save others.
_______________________
News links:

Residents are posting in a Canberra community at LiveJournal.
Canberra Communtiy

Google news about Canberra:
Google news

Canberra Connect Government Website (sometimes is not loading)
Canberra Connect

ACT Bushfire Status
www.esb.act.gov.au/media/bushfire.htm

Red Cross locating evacuees
www.news.com.au

Make a donation to the Red Cross
RedCross.org.au
_______________________
There's news from Observatory astronomers here
_______________________
http://news.ninemsn.com .au/National/story_45108.asp

Fires destroy Stromlo observatory
Irreplaceable equipment worth millions of dollars was destroyed when the Canberra bushfires ravaged the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory.
Research officer Vince Ford, a 38-year veteran of the observatory, told AAP staff were given 20 minutes' notice to evacuate as a fire storm on Mount Stromlo caught authorities by surprise.
A single road through pine forests links the observatory, established by the Commonwealth in 1924, with suburban Canberra.
"There's no way we could have saved it," Mr Ford said.
The fire storm destroyed all the observatory's telescopes and the original observatory building, which dated back to 1924.
"It's gone, it's all gone," Mr Ford said.
"We've lost all the telescopes, the administration building, which was the original observatory back in 1924.
"The first telescope has actually been there since 1910, it's gone.
"The main research telescopes, the 74-inch and 50-inch, they're gone. I've just seen pictures of it from the air and we don't have a telescope left."
The Australian National University (ANU) facility was one the premier astronomy training and research centres in Australia.
"(It's a huge loss) from a historical point of view, from a cultural point of view, from a scientific point of view," Mr Ford said.
"It's an absolute disaster."
Observatory staff still hope they may be able to salvage some of their research, stored on computers in office buildings that might have escaped the worst of the blaze.
The observatory offices are believed to be standing, but have been water damaged.
"At least we should be able to recover the hard disks from some of the computers, but at this stage we're guessing," Mr Ford said.
"All we know is the observatory is gone."
Some back-up files would also have been stored at the main ANU campus in Canberra.
"But a lot of the work will be at the observatory," Mr Ford said.

"Some of us, being suspicious sods, have stuff at home, but most of it would have been on the computers or in the offices up at the observatory."
ANU vice-chancellor Ian Chubb was due to meet observatory chiefs to be briefed on the extent of the damage. ©AAP 2003

For those interested, most of the damage was caused not by regular fires, but by a "firestorm", burning embers raining down from the sky. This caused hundreds of spot fires around the suburbs, and in inaccessible areas, gaps between houses and fences, in power poles. This type of fire (this large) has never happened in Australia before.

For those blaming fire services for not being fast enough, some facts:

* The Canberra fire forces are equipped to deal with SIX house fires at the same time.
* Over FOUR HUNDRED homes have been destroyed.
Many more fires have burned and been put out by residents using garden hoses and garden tools.
Even those of you without a calculator can probably see where the problem lies.
Some suburbs have lost access to water completely, with water station pumps burned out.
One power station has been completely razed, residents in that area may be without power for a month or more.
Several fire engines and police cars have been lost, roads are blocked by fallen trees and power lines, some of which are on fire.
Firefighters have been out saving other people's homes while their own burned to the ground.
A fire station itself caught fire, and no engines went to put it out, as people's homes were still in danger.

Give them some credit for putting their lives and homes on the line, to save others.
_______________________
News links:

Residents are posting in a Canberra community at LiveJournal.
Canberra Communtiy

Google news about Canberra:
Google news

Canberra Connect Government Website (sometimes is not loading)
Canberra Connect

ACT Bushfire Status
www.esb.act.gov.au/media/bushfire.htm

Red Cross locating evacuees
www.news.com.au

Make a donation to the Red Cross
RedCross.org.au
_______________________
There's news from Observatory astronomers here
_______________________
http://news.ninemsn.com .au/National/story_45108.asp

Fires destroy Stromlo observatory
Irreplaceable equipment worth millions of dollars was destroyed when the Canberra bushfires ravaged the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory.
Research officer Vince Ford, a 38-year veteran of the observatory, told AAP staff were given 20 minutes' notice to evacuate as a fire storm on Mount Stromlo caught authorities by surprise.
A single road through pine forests links the observatory, established by the Commonwealth in 1924, with suburban Canberra.
"There's no way we could have saved it," Mr Ford said.
The fire storm destroyed all the observatory's telescopes and the original observatory building, which dated back to 1924.
"It's gone, it's all gone," Mr Ford said.
"We've lost all the telescopes, the administration building, which was the original observatory back in 1924.
"The first telescope has actually been there since 1910, it's gone.
"The main research telescopes, the 74-inch and 50-inch, they're gone. I've just seen pictures of it from the air and we don't have a telescope left."
The Australian National University (ANU) facility was one the premier astronomy training and research centres in Australia.
"(It's a huge loss) from a historical point of view, from a cultural point of view, from a scientific point of view," Mr Ford said.
"It's an absolute disaster."
Observatory staff still hope they may be able to salvage some of their research, stored on computers in office buildings that might have escaped the worst of the blaze.
The observatory offices are believed to be standing, but have been water damaged.
"At least we should be able to recover the hard disks from some of the computers, but at this stage we're guessing," Mr Ford said.
"All we know is the observatory is gone."
Some back-up files would also have been stored at the main ANU campus in Canberra.
"But a lot of the work will be at the observatory," Mr Ford said.

"Some of us, being suspicious sods, have stuff at home, but most of it would have been on the computers or in the offices up at the observatory."
ANU vice-chancellor Ian Chubb was due to meet observatory chiefs to be briefed on the extent of the damage. ©AAP 2003

EVACS was successfully trialled last year in the ACT, Australia elections for a limited number of polling booths. The source is available here. Phillip Green, the electoral commissioner, was discussing the developments for next time. There was one whinging politician who lost, but it was more accurate than previous hand-counting methods. Sour Grapes

Computer voting is already happening in Australia. It occurred for the first time on October 20, 2001 in the Australian Capital Territory. You can see a summary of what happened here, and see the technical description here.

Computer voting is already happening in Australia. It occurred for the first time on October 20, 2001 in the Australian Capital Territory. You can see a summary of what happened here, and see the technical description here.

A Fully Tested Open Source E-Voting GPL'd system is available on the web.

It was developed within 27 weeks for about $100,000 US. Multi-language, using standard COTS hardware and OS. (The compiler and OS had to be open-source too of course - Debian and gcc). It has been used in a state election in the Australian Capital Territory, the equivalent of the District of Columbia. There's an Executive Summary of how well it did, warts and all. A PDF of the full report is also available.

/. readers will be most interested in the technical description. Oh yes, the code's available as a Zip file here.

The whole point about e-voting software is that it has to be open-source. The hardware has to be available for inspection at any time too, along with the OS source and the compiler source as well. The situation as described in the original article has a strong piscine aroma.

Disclaimer I work for the mob that did the Aussie system - though I was busy making spaceflight avionics software rather than election software at the time, it was another team. They Did Good.

A Fully Tested Open Source E-Voting GPL'd system is available on the web.

It was developed within 27 weeks for about $100,000 US. Multi-language, using standard COTS hardware and OS. (The compiler and OS had to be open-source too of course - Debian and gcc). It has been used in a state election in the Australian Capital Territory, the equivalent of the District of Columbia. There's an Executive Summary of how well it did, warts and all. A PDF of the full report is also available.

/. readers will be most interested in the technical description. Oh yes, the code's available as a Zip file here.

The whole point about e-voting software is that it has to be open-source. The hardware has to be available for inspection at any time too, along with the OS source and the compiler source as well. The situation as described in the original article has a strong piscine aroma.

Disclaimer I work for the mob that did the Aussie system - though I was busy making spaceflight avionics software rather than election software at the time, it was another team. They Did Good.

A Fully Tested Open Source E-Voting GPL'd system is available on the web.

It was developed within 27 weeks for about $100,000 US. Multi-language, using standard COTS hardware and OS. (The compiler and OS had to be open-source too of course - Debian and gcc). It has been used in a state election in the Australian Capital Territory, the equivalent of the District of Columbia. There's an Executive Summary of how well it did, warts and all. A PDF of the full report is also available.

/. readers will be most interested in the technical description. Oh yes, the code's available as a Zip file here.

The whole point about e-voting software is that it has to be open-source. The hardware has to be available for inspection at any time too, along with the OS source and the compiler source as well. The situation as described in the original article has a strong piscine aroma.

Disclaimer I work for the mob that did the Aussie system - though I was busy making spaceflight avionics software rather than election software at the time, it was another team. They Did Good.

A Fully Tested Open Source E-Voting GPL'd system is available on the web.

It was developed within 27 weeks for about $100,000 US. Multi-language, using standard COTS hardware and OS. (The compiler and OS had to be open-source too of course - Debian and gcc). It has been used in a state election in the Australian Capital Territory, the equivalent of the District of Columbia. There's an Executive Summary of how well it did, warts and all. A PDF of the full report is also available.

/. readers will be most interested in the technical description. Oh yes, the code's available as a Zip file here.

The whole point about e-voting software is that it has to be open-source. The hardware has to be available for inspection at any time too, along with the OS source and the compiler source as well. The situation as described in the original article has a strong piscine aroma.

Disclaimer I work for the mob that did the Aussie system - though I was busy making spaceflight avionics software rather than election software at the time, it was another team. They Did Good.

A Fully Tested Open Source E-Voting GPL'd system is available on the web.

It was developed within 27 weeks for about $100,000 US. Multi-language, using standard COTS hardware and OS. (The compiler and OS had to be open-source too of course - Debian and gcc). It has been used in a state election in the Australian Capital Territory, the equivalent of the District of Columbia. There's an Executive Summary of how well it did, warts and all. A PDF of the full report is also available.

/. readers will be most interested in the technical description. Oh yes, the code's available as a Zip file here.

The whole point about e-voting software is that it has to be open-source. The hardware has to be available for inspection at any time too, along with the OS source and the compiler source as well. The situation as described in the original article has a strong piscine aroma.

Disclaimer I work for the mob that did the Aussie system - though I was busy making spaceflight avionics software rather than election software at the time, it was another team. They Did Good.

I was a bit (well maybe more than a bit) overweight. My morning routine was to get up at seven, go down to my car and move it from the schoolyard (where I park over night because it's free) to the regular parking lot. Pop in a coin, go up to my flat and have breakfast, shower, brush teeth and then drive to work.

The only thing I've changed today is that before I go move my car, I put on trainer clothes, and when the car is moved I walk fast and/or run for 15 minutes (depending on my mood). You only need to walk or run in a pace that makes you breath a little heavier and sweat some. No heavy running in the morning! Thats bad for you.

Be sure to do this every workday. Do not eat breakfast before you walk/run. But you should always drink some water before exercising of course. What happens is that your body burns fat, because you havent inserted any other energy. And it also gives you a higher metabolism through the whole day. It starts up the engine so to speak.

Yep that was it! Hard isnt it? I've lost both my big lovehandles from this, and I dont miss them a bit! Neither do the chicks... And yes, you can start doing this tomorrow morning. ;-)

More tips (if you can spare more than two minutes):

• Drink water. I'm a drinker and I drink all day. It helps keeping "the engine" up and running, and I get no headaches. But I do have to go to the bathroom more often. But I think that is a good thing, because it keeps me from sitting in front of the computer for too long periods of time.
• Eat less fat. I dont eat much fat simply because I dont like fatty food very much, and even less nowdays when I'm fit.
• Another advice in form of a wordsay: In the morning eat like a king. At lunch eat like a prince. In the evening eat like a beggar. Don't eat big meals after 6pm.
• If you are hungry at night, eat a little and drink some water, then go back to bed and wait ten minutes. If you are still very hungry and cannot sleep, eat/drink some more and wait ten minutes. If you eat alot at once the body will not "note" the added energy in time, and you will eat too much.

Over n out. /Patrix

Like the letter sent back to Microsoft says: how will I know that the software being used to count votes -->8-- is working as it should if I don't have full access to the system running it???

Of course that's in Australia, not the USA. And it used the grotesquely complex Hare-Clarke voting system, far more complex than the USA's trivially simple first-past-the-post. One more thing - the system doesn't just electronically count the votes, it's an electronic voting system too, for multiple languages, with help for the visually-impaired so they can cast their vote in secret, and so on. Sounds as if it's just what Peru needs.

So why don't the people in the US demand something better than the system you've got? Over 2 U.

Like the letter sent back to Microsoft says: how will I know that the software being used to count votes -->8-- is working as it should if I don't have full access to the system running it???

Of course that's in Australia, not the USA. And it used the grotesquely complex Hare-Clarke voting system, far more complex than the USA's trivially simple first-past-the-post. One more thing - the system doesn't just electronically count the votes, it's an electronic voting system too, for multiple languages, with help for the visually-impaired so they can cast their vote in secret, and so on. Sounds as if it's just what Peru needs.

So why don't the people in the US demand something better than the system you've got? Over 2 U.

Like the letter sent back to Microsoft says: how will I know that the software being used to count votes -->8-- is working as it should if I don't have full access to the system running it???

Of course that's in Australia, not the USA. And it used the grotesquely complex Hare-Clarke voting system, far more complex than the USA's trivially simple first-past-the-post. One more thing - the system doesn't just electronically count the votes, it's an electronic voting system too, for multiple languages, with help for the visually-impaired so they can cast their vote in secret, and so on. Sounds as if it's just what Peru needs.

So why don't the people in the US demand something better than the system you've got? Over 2 U.

So IF they didn't request it, AND IF the products were sent through the USPS, THEN the products are theirs.

Unfortunately AOL avoids USPS regulations by using UPS instead.

However, that is not likely to save them, legally.

Supposedly, the Uniform Commercial Code Section 2 contains that rule, according to a previous poster, but I wasn't able to find the section in question. However, many states in the US do have such rules (see this Colorodo law for instance) as do many foreign countries that AOL does business in (Australia, for instance) and I am fairly sure this is the case at the federal level too, even if I can't find the relevant statute at the moment.

The problem, of course, is that AOL will claim that the shipment was solicited, and thus that their claim is correct, and they have the lawyers, credit card companies, credit reporting agencies, etc. behind them, so short of a class action suit like this the average Joe has very little chance of asserting his rights successfully against them.

Firstly.... Australian Capital _Territory_. :-)

Secondly, and this one's good: The actual project site. GPL requirements mean code's open source. And it is!

Software Improvements is a key player in a very good spot here. One of the principals of SI, Clive Boughton, is an associate Lecturer (or visiting lecturer) at the ANU, where he currently convenes the Software Engineering course. Last year, as well as teaching Software Analysis and Design and Project Management to the 3rd year cohort, he was strongly connected with the 3rd year Software Engineering Group Project.

The group project was to produce an online, web-based voting system. The project was targeted at Federal elections, but apart from the preference counting system, the principle holds.

Out of the project (after 1 academic year) came 12 seperate online voting systems. One of these systems was apparently pitched to the ACT government in response to the Request For Tender they released near the end of the year, which looked an awful lot like the Request For Proposal the teams were given at the beginning of the year.

Amongst the requirements for the project, was that the system be utterly open source (except for the RDBMS) and be delivered as a set of RPMs and SRPMS against Redhat 6.1.

Another important requirement of both projects (and the Australian electoral system) is that a person be able to vote just once, and that once a vote is recorded, it must not be able to be linked to a specific person.

The group project had tougher requirements than the ACT's project, in that the group project was for use in Internet voting, not just computerising polling booths.

Software Improvements can (and in fact has, I am given to understand) draw upon this unique pool of experience to produce what I confidently expect will be a successful product which I look forward to using come the election.

Some trivia:

• Although the ANU group project required RedHat 6.1, the two spare machines in the room ran Debian Linux up until the last month or so of the project where they went from spare to testing-platform.
• The ANU's past lecturer list includes Andrew Tridgewell, Paul Mackerras and Paul "Rusty" Russell. If you don't recognise the names, think linux-pmac, Samba, Netfilter, rsync, Tivo ethernet card, Tivo in Pal, pppd, just to name a few.

How do I know all this?

I was one of the group leaders for the 3rd year group project. I hold the distinction of having the only RedHat 6.1 computer in the project room which the system testers could not break into without getting a screwdriver from upstairs to clear the bios.

Mind you, that wasn't part of the testing. They just wanted to see our developement machine and figured it would be easier than calling me. Fooled 'em good!

For more information on the problems of internet voting, see this paper by the Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commissioner.

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/hare.html
http://abc.net.au/public/elections/2001act/hare_cl arke.htm
http://polisci.nelson.com/electsys.html

and, of course,

http://www.google.com/search?q=Hare-Clark+electora l+system

--

I would have thought that the sentence you quote, "with all source code released un the [...] GPL" would have been a bit of a tip off.

--