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Electronic Ballots In The Brazilian Presidential Election
jorlando writes "On Sunday (06-Oct) Brazil will again use electronic ballots for its Presidential Elections. Since a lot of /. readers from time to time talk about the pros and cons of this type of technology, it's a chance to see how it perform well (at least in Brazil...). Representatives from NGOs, ONU and foreign Governments were invited as observers and to see a working electronic votation system in a huge scale, since there are more than 115 million of voters in Brazil ... usually the results of the election are given 4 hours after the closing of the ballots (17:00 Brasilia -3GMT), with a small margin of error, since only 98% of the votes are computed in 4 hours ... some ballots are in places (mostly in far-away rural areas and in the Amazon region) that need to be taken to larger cities to be connected to the vote-download system ... ballots are made by Procomp, the comunication sytem is a VPN-like made by Embratel. The election can be accompanied by the main Brazilian notice sites (http://www.uol.com.br , http://www.estado.com.br, http://www.globo.com and others), mostly only Portuguese, so use the fish!"
If they are wearing hockey jerseys, they aren't naked....
Good thing Brazil has such a good voting system! It's unfortunate about all the corruption that goes on in third world nations that makes things inaccurate, such as in the recent election in this quant little place called Florida.
I'm not so sure that Brazil knows how to hold democratic elections. After all, they're all Spanish-accented, thick-mustachioed conga dancers right? Homer was held ransom for $50,000, Bart was swallowed whole by a boa, and Marge got some 'help' from the police. Certainly not the least corrupt place on the planet.
The Simpsons has certainly put me off from visiting what I previously thought might be a very nice country. If Brazil isn't suing Fox for defamation, they should.
mogorific carpentry experiments
...and a paper ballot! The presence or absence of an 'X' or a check, in a human script, is fairly incontrovertible. If counting takes 3, 4 days or a week, it's well worth it.
We all have seen that "chads" are fussy things, prone to hanging. And we're hip to the fact that bits are very evanescent things.
Reaching for democracy is a worthwhile pursuit, worth some pencils, some paper, and a little time.
they don't end up voting for pat buchanan
I hate sigs.
Hahaha
You believe in Simpsons cartoon? Maybe you should not watch South Park.
Stay in bed. Call a doctor.
Americans know everything about democratic elections, right?
Lets hope we don't have to decided what is a 0 and 1 is a one in the binary sequence. Those are sometimes easily confused.
The only thing I don't like about electronic voting is that I like the exitement of election night. Waiting for the results is the best part.
I have that problem,too, but taking a couple of Tums usually does the trick.
Sigs are bad for your health.
How is this offtopic? I hope timothy will lose lotsa karma in metamod.
If you don't like Babelfish, use Google's translation service: ballots are made by Procomp,, made by Embratel, http://home.uol.com.br/...
Oh man. Do NOT go there. You don't want to see a Jersey girl naked.
Hey! You didn't post that! I did!
how do you say "pregnant chads" in Portuguese?
I hate sigs.
Timothy is a cocksucking assmuncher.
Actually Brasil is suing fox for that certain episode of The Simpsons.
THE SUN IS GOING TO EXPLODE in six years ... NOW!
No it's not! It's going to explode
First of all, Brazillian people speaks portuguese, not spanish. Sencond, there's no Conga here. Suing Fox is a really dumb idea. I've seen "Blame it on Lisa" and it's *really* funny. I'm not offended as a brazillian citizen nor as a Simpsons fan. Either way, Blame it on CowboyNeal.
And start fixing ours. Seriously, our elections are as crooked as a three dollar bill. Now even third world countries are using electronic voting, while we, a technologically advanced nation, have to contend with 'hanging chads.'
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Brazilians are required to vote.
Probably results on a lot less confusion from infrequent voters, and a lot easier to setup and verify people on an electronic system.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
in belgium, we've been using electronic voting for quite a while now. Results are a lot faster, but queues at the booths are longer too because older people are a bit frightened and take their time to figure out what to do (even though it's as straigthforward as pussy : find the hole of a person that you like and fill it :-)
the system itself is not without failure though : one one district, the right-wing, fascists-in-disguise-party was not on the screen of the voting computers (I can't imagine that this could possibly be a programming mistake, since all other districts worked without flaw and used the exact same software)
last note : even here, only something like 30% or so of the votes are electronic. Next federal election, due in 1 year, is supposed to lift this percentage
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
who did you vote for last time?
Electronic voting would be nifty, but how do you audit the components and the source code? I imagine something like the slots in vegas. Wouldn't want to have some crafty developer inserting a special backdoor would you?
The more you know, the less you understand.
I mean ... NOW!
OK, OK. I really meant ... NOW!
There must be an error in my calculations somewhere. I'll fire up Excel and get back to you on this.
The people will have to learn the number of their candidates, to type in the electronic ballot. It will be 6 numbers, one for each type of candidate, and the best to vote are these:
Federal Deputy:
5656
Dr. Enéas
State Deputy:
56500
Ms. Havanir
Senator 1:
43
Green Party
Senator 2:
16
Against Burgeoise
Governor:
30
SP in God's Hands
President:
16
Joseph Maria - Against Burgeoise, Vote Sixteen
There is also the candidate Mr. Creysson, whose number is 00. He is a Protugeuse Tcheacher.
"...and stop wasting so much of my precious remaining time reading /."
/. is ok?
But posting to
I'm going to be devoting my remaining time to masturbating and watching reruns of CHiPs.
Sounds like a unit mixup to me: 27 millions degrees C == 49 millions degrees F.
If scientists could get their units straight, then the Mars probes wouldn't crash and the Sun wouldn't explode!
till the electronic voting has at least the same safegards as manual voting.
With manual voting people oversee people. Not perfect but at least if there is wide spread corruption the knowledge of that corruption at least leaks out somewhere.
With the electronic voting, it is in its infancy and there is easily the ability to implement a corrupt system with far less chance of being caught.
Its not that computers are less accurate or less reliable that people- quite the opposite- its just that having fewer people involved means less scrutiny and a greater chance of being able to be undetectably corrupt.
Even if you can check the source code used (which should be essential otherwise you know nothing at all about the systems integrity) you can't be guarenteed that that same source is the stuff used on the day.
Basically i wont be surprised when we find out that a government somewhere was in power for a decade or more winning every election only to find that the elections were a scam.
Ok there are plenty of scam elections now but we can see for ourselves that they are rigged.
Not only that, one party is in control of making our (closed source to everyone) voting machines.
Source
In January, the mayor of Rio threatened to sue a weather forecaster who predicted, wrongly, that there would be storms on New Year's Eve. The weather forecast kept crowds away from one of the biggest festivals of the year.
Do we have a trial-lawyers exchange program with them?
our elections are as crooked as a three dollar bill.
I've often wondered if this phrase will change later this century. We gained a Two Dollar Bill in 1976. I wonder if we'll get a Three Dollar Bill in 2076.
I then have to wonder what happens in 2276. I guess re-create the Five Doallar Bill and repeat the phrase with a Six Dollar? Perhaps, but what happens in 2176? "As crooked as a 5 dollar bill"? D'OH!
(assuming we're around that long, of course. Look at Rome...)
I guess I'm not taking inflation into account either...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
The BBC has an artice and a photo
Some quick stats from the article:
115.2m voters
Voting compulsory for over-18s
406,000 computer ballot boxes
Polls open 1100 GMT, close 2000 GM
I live in Rio, and I can tell you all this: The mayor is a complete idiot that should be doing a better job insted of buggin Fox with those ridiculous allegations. And yes, the forecaster's getting sued article is completely true, and that's just another example of the mayor's insanity.
Brazil is fucked.
the only way to go is Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). India has been using them since mid-90s. Much easier than counting 600 million ballots. Much quicker too.
The issue of voting scams can be minimized with the following steps:
1. Before anyone votes in a voting booth, they have have proof of identity, preferably a picture ID.
2. Require that during election time the voter can ONLY vote in one voting jurisdiction, no exceptions allowed. That way, people who live part of the time in one part of the country and part of the time in another part of the country cannot vote in both jurisdictions, which is a great way to cause voter fraud.
3. Use a ballot that all the choices are marked off by a small ink stamp. With an ink stamped ballot, the ballot can be read by both hand and machine counts easily.
I'm sure there are more steps available to lower vote fraud, but these three steps ends the vast majority of voter fraud problems.
Bruno, vai tomar no cu seu merda. Sou teu vizinho e vou te dar um tiro quando você for votar hoje. Filho da puta.
I'm sure he's trolling/trying to be funny, and you've bitten.
What're your thoughts? the student turnout is dismal, so we're looking at options.
Cobarde anonymous, você é uma parte de merda e morrerá do cancer do fígado aonde sempre você vai. Isto foi feito por um translater em linha, você podia dizer poderia você não?
Not just "Presidential Elections". In a few hours, we'll be voting for President, Senators, Governor, Federal Rep and State Rep.
I visited Brazil for two months ten years ago. I was struck by the high level of education and enormous competence floating around. I really didn't then understand what held them back. If this ballot system has what it takes, it may perhaps change the political scene to the better.
The president ruling when I was there was "Color"(sp?); an asshole in my humble view.
This time it may be for the US to get rid of Chimp Bush and his relatives in the Florida zoo; "No, don't you touch that ballot yet! Ok, you'll get a banana". Vote for electronics in the US too!
Nice to see an article about this, as I often say it in voting discussions. (I'm Brazilian)
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
I believe people over 16 can also vote with parental permission.
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
Thank Christ we don't have that in the US.
/me shudders at the thought of the average 18 year-old American moron who's only standing there in the voting booth because the law requires it. They'll get confused and think they're voting for TRL, next thing you know Justin Timberlake is the President.
Demorô! Tenta a sorte
1. You enter a number (The numbers are under every poster of every candidate. Vote 22!)
2. The person's picture comes up.
3. You press OK or CANCEL.
It's pretty easy cause a lot of people can't read.
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
Lap, we komen der weeral goed uit :)
Not that I'd mind pussy in the election queue >:)
Isn't Brazil effectively controlled by drug/etc. lords? Even if they don't have control over the voting, I'm not sure it matters a whole lot who the people elect.
Not that it's much better elsewhere...
It's not a new idea, of course. Since long, many countries require voters to vote in a special place where they are registered and allow a mechanism for people who cannot go there. For example you can request a special voting card some weeks before the election, which enables you to vote from any place of the world. (They even send somebody to fetch the envelope with your vote from your home, if you are not in the physical condition to perform the voting otherwise.)
When there was the first census for the Roman Empire about 2000 years ago, people had to go to their home town. The system was not invented by the USA.
This sig is a true statement, but I cannot prove it.
This would be bad to have in the US, because it'd just give people (and candidates) a false sense of completion with even more confidence than the current system does; remember, the President is elected by a few hundred people that the actual voters select (it was meant to be done by the Electors' names, not by the candidates' names for whom the Electors would most likely vote), and this selection is much closer to the inauguration than the voting-in of Electors. Remember, no matter what any computer says, there is not a President-elect until the Electoral College has met.
Costa Rica did it 5 years ago with AT&T. It was based on quite interesting technology called Byzantine Quorums. The goal was an effecient replication of the same info over a network. The idea is that you don't have to copy the data to all participating nodes, only to a Quorum... (The name Byzantine comes from much earlier "Byzantine Generals" problem).
Good luck to the Brazilians! I personally wouldn't trust a system that doesn't leave a paper trail. That's asking for disaster.
In North Carolina we use "fill in the bubble with a No.2 pencil" format voting forms. One fills in the blanks next to the name of your candidate or voting issue. Then the ballot is fed into an electronic (1970s era?) counting machine.
Each poll place has it's own counting machine. They are not (to my knowledge) networked together like conventional modernday computers. Even if someone did find a way to h4x0r them, they'd have to go around to every voting place and h4x0r each machine.
This leaves a paper trail. At the same time it uses modern technology to count votes. It is the best of both worlds in my opinion.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with the Flori-DUH voting system but poorly trained poll workers and an excess of voters with limited reading comprehension skills.
I prefere a ball-pen, because it cannot be erased so easily.
If you don't use punch card but mark a paper with the writing tool of your choice, it doesn't take much time to count it. Just use enough people to count it. For example, the completely manual counting in Austria usually takes about 4 hours. (Just the voting cards from people who vote from other countries take longer to arrive.)
Besides, some cultures will prefer (e.g.) a circle instead of an X.
This sig is a true statement, but I cannot prove it.
India used electonic voting machines in the last general elections in 1998... as well as the much publicised recent assembly elections in Kashmir
...and hopefully the effect will spill over to my poor beleaguered nation, Argentina.
To all Americans who don't have any experience with this particular form of electoral fraud, what BrunoC says is true, the biggest problem down there is the purchase of votes from the poor. Considering the amounts of campaign money the politicians have available, this practice is relatively cheap.
Recently an Argentine journalist provided a possible solution: if you're on Government Assistance, you cannot vote. This would render that system of vote purchase unusable... Is it fair? Hmm.
Thanks...
not to be an a**hole, but i hope people quit bitching about American democracy. Are we perfect. no. But where else you gonna see people climb into rickety rafts, hop barbed wire fences and make a mad dash, or store up in the holds of cargo ships for weeks, just for a chance to live? remember, you all sit here, criticize the hell out of America, and guess what? If you live here, you're damn glad you do, and if you don't you most likely wish you did.
the world hates us because we have so much. it isn't because we're greedy. no. we have freedom. freedom to do whatever you want, take risks, go where you want, try anything, be anything. and we have laws that protect even the smallest minorities.
if arrested, what other country in the world would you want to be in. yeah, thoguht so.
where else you gonna see the most visible representative of a nation to the world(secretary of state), be a member of 10% of the population. huh?
what other country has freely admitted its wrongs, and expended more energy and money rectify said wrongs? well i'm waiting...
had algore won, you'd all be happy? did you check the party affiliation of berman and hollings lately? hmmm...
And what other country has given even one life, let alone thousands and thousands, to free people from other countries, to bring them democracy. American blood saved the world. A little thanks might be nice. Not that we're holding our breath...
America is the model for the world. Brazil is attempting to become a democratic society. Let's hope they do. I wonder who their model for democracy is?
sig
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
No, their are not Spanish-accented, they are Portuguese-accented as you can confirm hear, and if are affraid of visiting Brazil, just because a tv series make some humor the country then you don't know how to hold a joke. ;-)
By the way do the U.S. know how to hold democratic elections?
May be, if they had one
Brazilians that live in other countries aren't required to vote. And if they WANT to, they can vote only for President.
:D
Even if the voter lives in Brazil, if he isn't able to vote (because he is traveling, ill, attending a marriage, you name it) you can justify your absence without any worries.
We are not oblied to vote with a gun pointing to our foreheads, like it may sound.
Well, AFAIK we have one episode dealing with Brazil - all the rest deals with the average NORTH-american citizen... So I guess you must be a Homer. Stick to your donuts and go dive into a badly maintained nuclear plant.
You are the perfect example of the average american arrogancy.
Check it out:/ index2 .html
http://www.tse.gov.br/eleicoes/eleicoes2002
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "Vote Aqui!!" to see how the eletronic ballot looks like.
That's the site of TSE , the Superior Electoral Court, a part of the Judiciary responsable just for the election.
In the botton of the ballot screen you can see the numbers of the candidates.
Press "BRANCO" to vote for no one (your vote is computed to the most voted).
Press "NULO" to nulify your vote. Your vote is computed to no one.
Press "Confirma" to confirm your vote, after choosing the candidate number.
You can vote just in the party by typing just the first 2 digits of the candidate (not useful for president for obvious reasons).
The order you must type is as follows:
Deputado Federal (Federal Deputy)
Deputado Estadual (State Deputy)
Senador (Senator)
Senador (Senator)
Governador (State Governor)
Presidente (President)
Notice you must vote for 2 different senators.
There are a bunch of information and statistics on the TSE site that may be worthy checking out too (only in portuguese, unfortunately).
Cheers.
How many VPN exploits are there? A man in the middle attack would seem to be the best approach. If we conduct man in the middle attacks against banks laundering drug money to support Columbian presidential elections, why would we not make a direct attack to insure our guy gets elected in another South American country?
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
When I've raised this before, I've found that many Americans have been horrified. Freedom of speech is the highest goal. Suppression of the press will lead to dictatorship.
Guys, get real! Stopping the press saying one specific thing for three or four hours is the tiniest suppression of civil liberties. It's a much bigger and more basic civil liberty that the whole country should have a level playing field for voting. Most other democracies do this and haven't turned into dictatorships yet.
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
please tell me my brazilian is playing tricks with me, but when I read the specs of the voting machines, I start comparing them to my AthlonXP1800+/kt266/256mb and almost feel jelous, Can the brazilian goverment afford these kinds of machines? I guess most voters take their pen-drive filled with mp3`s with them so they can listen to some music while deciding, thats why I would want two usb ports and a "interface de áudio onboard" on my voting machine ;-) There Is a lot to be said for having a high-res lcd screen on the machine, voting for a picture seems a lot more mistake-proof then voting for candidate number 045089 (are you sure you want to vote for candidate 045089 [Y/n]?) But then again It might get to much of a tv-democracy (this bloke looks really trustworthy, if only he would shave his mustache and put his arm down before getting his picture taken)
Would I be a troll if I asked you guys to imagine a beowulf of these doing number crunching 364 days of the year? These things could get a hard-disk (I imagene they are based on industrial pc boards like pc/104 stuff(although those can`t have a "módulos DIMM de 168 vias"), so they will have an ide controller) and be a really nice mp3 jukebox, the geode procesor could even do visualisation on the lcd-screen, even a realy realy simple x-terminal could be build If you network them over serial or usb.
Your'e required to vote. Otherwise you'll incur the penalty, which is either a 100 Boliviano fine(exchange rate $1 = 7.2 Bs.) or a day in the local jail, your choice.
Talk abt third world countries, even in Indian kashmir they use it....
if arrested, what other country in the world would you want to be in.
Unless you're 99.9% anglo-saxon-caucasian, anywhere but the USA.
is votation really a word?
strange...
I can see it now:
Announcer:It appears the winner is a "I 0wn J00z" of the "All your base are belong to us" party.
Burma?
A company ran the Arizona Democratic primary for the 2000 election.
The source code was never made available. It still isn't. I is "IP" they claim.
The system was supposed to be sealed. When there were problems during the election, the CEO made the employees open the database to change people's PIN numbers so that people could vote. (Because TV crews were filming and having someone unable to vote would have been disastrous for the company, so rules be damned).
A major accounting firm was supposed to be auditing so things like this didn't happen. They looked the other way.
When the company ran low on VC cash, they turned to a Saudi Arabian consortium. The Saudis now own around 20% of the company and are the major shareholder.
In a recent election for a private sector association, the company made a mistake by opening the returned paper ballots too soon. So they took the ballots and sealed them in new envelopes and brought them to the post office and remailed them themselves (so they would have postmarks). They committed mail fraud for crying out loud.
The electronic system is woefully devoid of proper security and checks and balances. Any one of a number of employees can go in and alter the results at any time, and the software won't send up a red flag of any kind.
There is not a single seasoned infosec professional in the entire organization.
And they are currently handling voting regestration for several states, including Florida.
There are many possible attacks on both paper and electronic voting systems. The advantage I see for the electronic ballot is that it's much easier to audit in very large elections. Hire a few competent, honest, programmers and they will detect fraud much faster and more reliably than an army of people counting and recounting votes could.
With paper voting no one sees but a very small part of the total. A totally electronic system is much more visible. How many votes can someone count? A few thousands, at most. About 0.01% of the total in Brazil. With open source electronic voting (which, BTW, is NOT what they are using in Brazil), anyone would be able to see the source code and look for abuse all over the country.
Am I the only one who got your joke? Man, I don't know what's going on today.
Everyone - those are the exact reasons why Brazil was suing The Simpsons. It's a joke. Get over it.
No, their are not Spanish-accented, they are Portuguese-accented
Your "accent" is most closely related to the phonetic structure of your mother tongue. Except for the nasals, is Portuguese phonetics very different from Spanish phonetics?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The bar is set pretty high, so unless each question can be answered, electronic voting is a poor solution.
There is a Java version, available here
And the good news: it is internationalized and it is translated to english. :)
--
boto
Due to the high illiteracy rate in the Northeast, campaigners would hand out a R$5 bill, with a card containing a candidates picture, and the numbers required to vote for that candidate (no names, text, or anything else). The most frequent complaint of fraud was that they did this during the morning of the election (not allowed), not that they were essentially paying for votes!
The other problems that occured were that some areas didn't have access to electricity, that some voting machines got stolen and were never turned in, that some (idle)threats were made against those that voted a certain way. It appeared, though, that the electronics worked pretty well, at least none of them "blue-screened".
Personally, I'm opposed to the idea of electronic voting, because there is no hard-copy to use as "proof of vote".
All candidates have their Income Tax declarations online here Controle Público
Most can't read it, but it is available.
Jose T Oliveira Jr.
The Ballot machines used in Brazil use a floppy for storage somewhere in the process. This is certainly as safe as using a pencil. right? ;-)
Lets see, windows CE, floppy disks and dialup connections, three of the most reliable things in the world today. I see no problem trusting the results of national elections with all this modern technology in place.
Yes, the US should take a que from brazil and implement;-)
I worked for TSE (higher election court), responsible for the elections. I've seen the development of the computer ballot system.
I can tell you all, brazilians and everyone, else that the system is very good. Aside from some failing hardware which accounts for up to 3% of total computer ballots, we have a very highly reliable system.
The most vulnerable part of the system is still the voters. In some places people really trade votes for shoes, money, promises, glasses, food. It's a shame. Our politicians diguised their ruling through ignorance on a "democratic" talk of opening the system for everyone, including completely uneducated people. They are the most influenciable ones cause they also are the poorest. The politicians knows it and keeps them uneducated so they can't escape this vicious cycle. This is our most shameful problem.
But with all this problems we still have one of the most efficient voting systems. Counting starts almost immediately after the end of voting. No one cam manipulate the votes. There is a high degree of cryptography applied in the system. No single party or group knows the algorithm and the keys at the same time. Only a handful of people know the keys, to be precise.
Perhaps the best assurance of the reliability of the results are that the TSE needs to have a perfectly clean and fast system. This happens cause the work this court does, aside from preparing the elections, could be done by other courts. Judgement of election problems could easily be done by normal justice channels. But the very good levels of satisfaction with the work done by TSE (and all lower level election courts) makes them immune to the constant attacks on its existence. Make a bad move and say goobye to all that power and visibility that a position there can get.
After this somewhat extensive reply I would like to say that people from other countries cannot imagine the real dimensions of our elections: 115 million voters, 6 president candidates, thousands of candidates for other positions (we are voting for 6 positions in total). It's like 5 or 6 elections in one. And we do not want to have the really shameful example of the USA where two president candidates admited frauding the elections. Our system make it impossible here. And for those that do not trust anything, we are introducing a printed paper copy of the voting, obviously not revealing the voter. Anytime you can go there and verify if the printed votes represent exactly what the computer ballot system says. And the voter look at the printed copy, can confirm it's what it was inputed and, if all ok, just press Confirm and the printed vote is kept at the ballot automatically, with the electronic one computed. For the paranoid, the software used, including the sources, was seen by computer experts hired by the political parties. Let's say that all the precautions were taken in account.
For all us brazilians, good voting. For the others keep looking, we are doing a good job here.
There is proof of vote. You get a receipt for your vote (we keep it, it is important), and a copy of it goes to a bag under the voting machine. These printed ballots are sampled for auditing purposes, mainly when the result from that voting machine deviate too much.
Jose T Oliveira Jr.
My interpretation is that he found that the massive undercounting of Al Gore's votes was a predictable artifact of the machines chosen and the ballot layout.
If a partisan person, who knew about this defect of the machine, was designing the layout of the ballot, they could take advantage of this flaw to skew the election results.
Ensuring the Integrity of Electronic Voting
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
The floppy and the newly-added printer are backup systems, nothing wrong with that. When I'm at school I usually transmit a copy of any files I'll need electronically and keep a backup floppy, just in case.
As for the dialup connections, how else would you suggest they connect terminals from all over Brazil (roughly 8.5 million km^2)? These are encrypted VPN-like connections. The system is certainly not perfect, but is light-years ahead of the technology currently used in the US.
I guess this will attract all India-bashing trolls out there, but electronic voting has been a common feature in the last few Indian (both federal and state) elections. (All elections in India are conducted through a disinterested regulatory body called the Election Commission of India). Most people widely welcome the use of Electronic Voting Machines; there have been lesser instances of rigging and booth-capturing after their deployment. Besides, there's been a cost-effectiveness as well; suddenly general elections have become cheaper.
Oh yes, EVM's are being used in the ongoing Kashmir elections as well; since the Kashmir issue is highly emotive (and consequently, irrevocably factionalised) for most people, I'll refrain from commenting on the EVMs' effectiveness there. But yes, the response in most other places in India has been positive.
More than mere navel gazing.
I cannot precise the dates, but Brazil started experiences earlier than 1997. According to your article from ethoseurope.org, in 1997 there was a test in Costa Rica and the goal was to do away with paper in 2002.
Brazil started with eletronic voting in a single city in the 90s (again, I do not know the exact year) and since then the number of people that voted without paper has been increasing in each election, finally reaching to a full 100 percent for the first time ever, today.
The americans are very ignorants, they watch simpsons and think that they know all about Brazil... Well , I will be ignorant too ( i love my country as you love yours ) , we aren't the richest country or the better country in the world , but our woman , our sports our dicks are better than yours (LOL) Now I know why Bin Laden hates America...
So this (representative?) Democracy thing has worked ok for us in the United States for a couple centuries and a bit. But we've had our share of problems and bad leaders.
Democracy, especially in its strange USA form is probably not the best government possible (given human fallability), and may not even be the best implemented government in existence today. certainly we should believe the future holds improvement for all human systems, including goverment. What would a future be without progress?
Anyway, why should we be so proud of a goverment that is (in principle, at least) ruled by the majority? The majority of people living in the United States are probably less intelligent than the average slashdot reader. And a minority of slashdot readers seem to make comments with any real thought. Minorities seem more important to me... the fringes. Rule of the majority reminds me of the phrase "mob rule"...
I just want to be left alone. I don't really want anyone to tell me what to do, unless they are friend, family or lover. I don't want the majority, a judge, a policeman or a system of checks and balances to tell me what to do. And in return I'll promise to try and leave other people alone.
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Incite and flee.
(long post, sorry if I sound offensive, it's just MHO)
One of the things I despise about the US (I refer to the whole country, not specific individuals, there's a lot of nice North Americans) is treating other countries like caddle, and those that do not conform to the caddle paradigm, as wolves.
Cuba and many middle east countries that have no affairs whatsoever with the US, just because they do not lower their heads to the international imperialism imposed by the US Govt. are treated as enemies and targeted for oppression and hatred.
Why do many North Americans hate Cuba? They never bombed the US, they never tried to limit US's freedom in any way (of course they could, if they had the power to, but that's not the point. I'm assuming there's no intention at all of doing so) and still, the US target them as being a "potential threat".
I must agree with the idea that "the price for freedom is eternal vigilance", but being vigilant means keeping you eyes open to what surounds you, not bombing everyone that doesn't agree with your way of living!
Keeping your eyes open and being well informed would soon reveal to you that Fidel Castro never had any terrorist background, and most of the actions he took were aimed at securing his country from outer problems. (no I'm not Cuban and I'm not saying they're perfect, but I think they deserve they're space to do what they wish to themselves - not to others, like the US)
You (everyone) should realize that Comunism, Socialism, Democracy and many other minor social arquitectures are all responses to the same human need: to interact, to build a society with the smallest number of intrinsecal illnesses. None of them are bad in principle, but ALL of them are corruptible, and can be distorted and transformed into something bad for the masses or bad for the individual.
The article mentioned about the international terrorist network is IMHO bullshit. I could be wrong, but since it recieved a lot of negative reviews from people I consider well-informed and good judges of values, I'm inclined to believe it's just paranoia of change, since Lula's not your avarage politician, he has as uncommon background for a president and many people (me included) doubt he could be a good president, but that doesn't in any way indicate he has terrorist connections neither does it indicate that he'll be a dictator of any sort and ban elections, it's kindda hard to do that in a country as big as Brazil, and doing so is very far from his presidential plans, the population would not condone with such a lie and a re-write of what happend back in 1992 with Collor would happen again, a president would be thrown off.
What he DOES have is a strong sindical background, and let's remember that without sindicates, we would all be working 12 hours a day (I still do, out of stupidity =] ), there would be NO minimum wage and and the socitety as a whole would be even more inclined towards the BOSS and less towards the WORKER.
I'll stop my rant now, I'm mumbled too much.
But I must say that in terms of technology the brazilian election is doing great, I can only hope that the kind of mockery that happened in Florida doesn't repeat itself in Brazil and that the next US general elections turn out to be better then the last one, because, just as anyone else, the US needs democracy, and it's still far from it.
I'm really interested in seeing how this election go, and very interested in reading this thread. However, it still surprises me how some people are so ignorant of the facts about other countries.
I don't necessarely think that the rest of the world hates the US just for "jealousy." It is kinda like the other way around. Some of the first comments on this thread were about how "Brazil is a third-world country" full of "ignorant people" and "corrupt politicians" and "drug lords", not to mention the Simpsons episode... It saddens me that, even though some of these things are true (just like they are in any other country), this is the first thing people say about my country (or anywhere else south of the U.S.)
I do live in the U.S. (I kinda like it, actually), so it's not like I don't know what I'm talking about, or haven't felt some "generalization" and "discrimination". Americans try to understand why they're sometimes disliked, and (some, at least) assume "well, our country is better, so they must be jealous!" I just hope that Americans will eventually try to learn more about people from other places, and not view America as "the only good place to live in the world." People resent being put down just because they're from somewhere else, because they have an accent.
BTW, did you know that Alberto Santos Dummont (a Brazilian) was the first to fly a heavier-than-air, *self-propeled* craft? He came up with an engine that lifted the craft in the air, and did not need anybody pushing it, or trails or boards to guide it. He was also the responsible for the wrist watch you're using right now.
Corinthians campeao!
people with internet access can download a program called DIVNET2002 to follow the results as they are computed (with a 10 minute delay) there's a windows version and a java version... you can download the java version at the url: http://www.tse.embratel.net.br/divnet2002/download /divnet2002j.zip
:)
best regards
rapunza from brazil
What can I say? I just love flamebaits :)
australia and europe have hundreds of thousands of people coming in every year? think not.
model for the world, Dec. of Independence, longest democracy, list goes on.
yes we have our poor. but by comparison, our poor don't suffer like say in Rio de Janeiro.
the rodney king comment, uh i believe the cops are still i jail.
unprejudiced view? you are simply jealour my friend, i can go into a store and have endless choices. pray tell, isn't that freedom? as for our schools, i'll give that one to you though...
nuked japan, uh pearl harbor, num nuts. and by the way, an invasion would have cost 10 million lives, and don't forget about nanking, phillipines, etc.
and by the way, who spent untold billions rebuilding japan, huh?
france, yes, great wines, cheeses, and anti-semitism. by the way, great job working for the nazis in ww2.
america is not perfect. we have much corruption in our politcial system. am i pleased that for instance the governor of my state, california, takes millions from businesses then does their bidding. no. am i pleased that corporate thieves get off while people's 401ki's are shot down in flames. no. throw their asses in jail for 20, hard time.
we have lots to fix. sure. just remember this. did you see mass round ups of arabs/muslims? no. did we drop more food than bombs on afghanistan. yes. and lastly, we play out our battles live, in front of the nation, in front of the world. and no other place on earth could have withstood an election scenario like we had in 2000, then just goten on with their lives and moved on. no riots, civil wars, etc. that folks is a model of democracy. which is what we are.
oh lastly this, i see where the brazilians are electing a former communist guerilla. nice.
sig
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
i expected what i got. but it seems that every now and then, the rest of the ungrateful world needs a reminder.
let's see. was it a european nation that went into somaila to relieve starvation? uh, no. europe talks a great game. they don't do crap.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Well, since there seems to be some frequent doubts about our voting system, I'll be wrapping up some of the responses from others. I'm Brazilian also, but I won't be voting on these elections.
(i) This is not a new system
This isn't the first time we're voting electronically. We've been doing this for some years now. It started only in the bigger voting places (like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro), and (I can't remember exaclty when) has been extended to (almost) the whole country since the last (2 years ago,, mayors an senate) or second to last (4 years ago, president, governors and senate, just like this one) elections.
Not all votes are electronic. There are some remote places where I'm not sure if it's already electronic, and also votes from Brazilians that reside out of Brazil are still done using paper ballots (AFAIK) and, thus, counted manually. Those are generally the cause the we do not have the final result until the next day (or 2, sometimes), until all the votes arrive from other countries.
If you want to see what it looks like just go to this site and click on the title (light blue, "Teste seu voto online com candidatos fictícios"). It's a Java applet that looks like the voting device. It's slow as hell, but you can get an idea.
(ii) There is a paper backup system
When you vote, your vote is stored in the memory of the voting device, and also printed and stored in a bag attached to the device. In case there are doubts regarding the device, or if it fails in some way, then votes are counted by hand. But, primarily, all votes are counted electronically.
(iii) Voting is mandatory
Yeah, we are obligated to vote. If we do not vote, we have to say why we didn't. If we still do not say why, we lose many civil rights (as has been already pointed out: we cannot get a job - at least not in public services, etc, etc).
If someone does not live in Brazil (like myself) we have two options: vote in a local Brazilian government building (consulate, embassy, etc) or, when back to Brazil, fill some official forms and show proof that you were not in Brazil during the elections. I'm in the second group, since there are no government agencies that I know of around here in Texas. "Foreigners" are only allowed to vote for president (and not for other local authorities).
Well, I think that's pretty much all for now.
Marcelo Vanzin
Unfortunately, the Brasilian electronic voting system reliability and security are flawed. Brasilians are trusting it more out of hope in fundamental human goodness and general political progress, meaning sure, no one will attempt electoral fraud nowadays, coupled to general technical illiteracy, than because it was proven good. Because it was not.
Only a few computerised ballots leave a paper trail for vote audit. Many of them run a customised MS WinCE version. There were only five days to only a few accredit technicians from the political parties to audit the whole kabooza. Requests for proper auditing went unheeded by the electoral authorities, which are astoundingly technical illiterate and moreover refuse to educate themselves.
Here are a proven flaw on the self-auditing portion of the system, a first-person account of the absurdity of the audit attempt, and an analysis of some failures in the auditing process. All in Portuguese, use the Fish!
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
This program will update the counting as the numbers are computed.
Louisana has electronic voting machines and we lent many of them to Florida. They were returned when Edwin Edwards won.
In Brazil, I'm told, the truth will set you free. Because of this the Ministry of Inofrmation and Central Services have been in power for years. You never know when some terrorist like Buttle will fix the machines and make them lie.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ah, C'mon. The system is reliable? Maybe, but it is not trustworthy (and don't come with that UNICAMP evaluation crap). Read the previous post where a reader lists the requirements of a good electronic voting system, and judge for yourself if our system provides that. How can i be sure that my vote was not associated to me? The code is open? Really? All of it? (no). The TSE says that it can't open the source of some code because it is copyrighted, so please, require that the electronic ballot use only software that could be opened.
I would like *all* ballots to print votes, and some ballots be selected by chance *after* the election to compare physical and electronic results.
I work in the elections (3rd election this year), as a "mesario" (the person who guides people to vote, for those unfamiliar with the system), and I can assure you that "people is the most vulnerable part of the system" is very easy to say, but the problem that the system is difficult to use to old people is not a people's problem, but a system's problem. Was there *any* usability study on the design of the electronic ballot?
I could go on and on, but I worked the full day for free for the elections, having to deal with 80 year olds that are not required to vote but still do anyway, to participate in the democracy (which I think is nice), but can't figure out how to use the electronic ballot (first usability assumption made incorrectly by the TSE: people do read what is on screen. They don't!), and then I come home to read slashdot, to read that the system is nice? Nice piece of sh*t.
The really nice thing about the brazilian elections is the logistics, of distributing ballots everywhere (midle of the jungle, midle os the swamp, northeast, everywhere), and then bringing all floppy discs (yeah, 1.4MB floppies! What happens if it gets CRC errors?!) back to the counting places.
You got heavily confused you dude! The thick mustachioed comga dancers with a thick spanish accent -except when they're speaking spanish- are from CUBA, stupid.
We don't speak spanish in Brasil!!!
It's portugues we speak!!!
And we know how to hold democratic elections, for the first time we have the chance of having a president that did not came from the normal elite's in brasil.
Lula presidente!!
True. Only for president. But declaring absence is kind of a pain...
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
In the site www.tse.gov.br have a litle navigator in englis for the people of the rest of the word.
Wasn't there a SeaQuest DSV where the boy genius hacked the hackers that were trying to hack the Brasillian elections?
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Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
If you plan your trips based on a cartoon... and based on Simpsons, which critics evry single "american-way of life", I can just say... What a pity.
AH, and brazilians speak PORTUGUESE, not spanish, you moron.
Tsc
Estou enviando este post em português porque me recuso a escrever na lingua deste povo nojento (mas se alguma alma caridosa quizer traduzi-lo, faça bom proveito (ou então usar algum tradutor mirabolante)).
Quem viu todos filmes do James Bond sabe como eles retratam o americano do interior... um gordo retardado metido a besta.
Vamos falar sobre os Simpsons:
Em 99% dos episodios, eles tiram sarro da cara dos próprios americanos. Que moral tem um imbecil falar de nós, por um mero episódio? Com certeza pensa que nossa capital é Buenos Aires.
Depois ficam chorando quando morrem alguns míseros milhares de americanos em atentados como o WTC. Apenas lamento que junto, tenham morrido centenas de estrangeiros, mas é um pequeno preço a se pagar.
Alias, os americanos acham que são grande coisa por ser a nação preponderante atualmente, mas sabemos bem que isso só aconteceu porque na 1a e 2a Guerra Mundial, os impérios Britânico, Francês e Alemão foram destroçados. Ou seja, não há merito nenhum em ser a nação preponderante.
Sobre a nossa democracia, ok, ela não é muito eficiente, mas ao menos aqui, o presidente é eleito com maioria de votos, coisa que não aconteceu com o atual presidente americano.
Sem mais delongas.
PS: Bin Laden is returning!
Funny how a third world nation with some of the highest debts, and Aids cases in the world... can have a better system than the US for voting.
Is the US nimble enough for the up-incomming nations that learn from the US's mistakes?
We will end up as the police of the world, instead of the example of freedom in 30 years.
Hey, can I be pregnant?
I can't concentrate!
Wait... I'm a guy...WHEW! where is the Java?
In the Bazilian's largest election ever done the numbers are impressive:
- 115.254.113 people are expected to vote;
- 6 candidates for president;
- 218 for governors in all the 26 federation states;
- 349 for the senate;
- 18.880 candidates in total.
The profile (impartial) of the candidates to the presidence are as follows:
- Lula (Luiz Inácio): industry worker, sindicalist, oposition;
- José Serra: candidate of the current government, ex-ministry, situation;
- Anthony Garotinho: ex-governor of Rio, oposition;
- Ciro Gomes: moderate oposition;
- Zé Maria: worker, revolutionary, ultra oposition;
- Rui Costa: worker, revolutionary, ultra oposition.
Interesting data:
- The digital signatures of all softwares used in the ballot are avaible to the public.
- The UNICAMP's final report about the voting system is also avaible.
The ballots' specifications can be found here. Here is an abstract:
- CPU: Geode National - 166 media GX.
- RAM: starting at 32 MB in motherboard, DIMM modules 168 pins.
- USB: 2 onboard.
- Paralell port: Centronics onboard.
- Disk Interface: IDE for Flash Card e controller onboard for floppy.
- Video board: SVGA onboard, resolutions up to 1280 x 1024, and LCD VGA controller.
- Video: LCD Monocromatic de 9,4".
- Audio: 1 onboard.
- Keyboard: Array with 13 keys, PS/2.
- Please, ignore everything written above.
Well I saw that Simpson's episode. Tahat was the prove that people from "first world" know nothing about other cultures. The world know U.S. but U.S. doesn't know the world. Who is wrong ?
Our goverment decide not to process Fox because we have many other problems (like U.S. protecionism) to take care.
The Ballot machines used in Brazil use a floppy for storage somewhere in the process. This is certainly as safe as using a pencil. right? ;-)
Yes, it is, but the storage system also includes 2 flash cards and a printer. Just a printer would be as safe as a pencil, all other medias assure an even larger safety.
- Please, ignore everything written above.
On each voting section, Parties' Supervisors carry floppies with them. Upon closing, they ask the voting Manager (who audits as a whole) to make a copy of the results into the floppy.
Then... they carry on, and promote parallel counting. Thats really interesting. Some parties know the results way ahead the official results.
There's also a need to have supervisors for each party in the voting section. It's not a rule, but a wise move, made for each party interested.
Theres the small risk of, nearing the closing of the election, officers start typing the missing voters' Voting ID numbers into the terminal, in order to vote for them.
aw shit, now why didn't anybody tell me that my $3 bill wasn't any good . . It even has a president on it and everything. what's that? well how the hell was I supposed to know that Millard Fillmore wasn't on any money?? wtf . . .
Look at this and be happy! :DDDDD
Not all votes are electronic. There are some remote places where I'm not sure if it's already electronic,
This year they tried to make ALL voting eletronic. Except for the 1% of failed ballots, this happened.
(ii) There is a paper backup system
No, there isn't a paper backup system. Just a few ballots register the votes in paper. Almost all doesn't have any possiblity of audit.