Swiss Town Holds First Internet Vote

felix.rauch writes "According to an article on Swissinfo, a small town near Geneva (Switzerland) held the first Internet-based vote this weekend. 44% of the voters (323) cast teir ballot over the Internet. Officials believe it may have been the first Internet-vote worldwide. While the Swiss media seem enthusiastic about the project, I see serious security and privacy concerns. The voters had to enter a 16-digit password, as well as their birthplace, date of birth and another number sent to them by post. Personally I think Internet-voting should be avoided until it's implemented by an open zero-knowledge protocol and checkable afterwards. Who can give a guarantee that nobody tampers with the results or creates a database with citizens voting information?"

Comments

Switzerland & Referendums

[CaptainZapp]

This is (in terms of voters convenience) not that big a deal as it sounds.

Dependent on the community you live in you can vote by mail at no charge. In Zurich it works like this:

3 to 4 weeks prior to a referendum (there are 2-3 per year) you get an envelope, which contains the official information, the voting forms, a card and a small envelope. You fill out the forms, place them into the small envelope, on which you seal the flap (so voting confidentiality is guaranteed), sign the card, stick everything back into the envelope it came in, close it (it's supplied with a mechanism to do just that) and drop it into the next mail box at your convenience (no stamps required).

So there is really no excuse not to vote.

I really don't see e-voting as that much more convenient and loaded with a whole pile of potential problems.

Re:Similar concerns for normal voting.

[Max von H.]

Oh, come on! This is utter BS... It only happens in a tiny remote place and is a national embarrassment.

As a Swiss, I believe we have a pretty good voting system even though too few of us seem to bother with it. Thing is our system is such that we vote often on various objects. For more practicality, we vote on many objects at once, several times a year, whether they're local, state or federal.

Here in Geneva, we've been voting from home for a long time. It's a simple system: you get an envelope in you mailbox containing:

a card with your name and SS number on which you have to write down your birthdate and which you have to sign.

a booklet containing the texts of the laws being modified/added/canceled and a simplified explanation.

a booklet containing the opinions (explanations + voting recommendation) of the government AND various political parties represented.

the voting bulletins themselves with checkboxes, perfectly straightforward (if you're confused with them, you're either blind or shouldn't be allowed to vote).

an anonymous voting envelope in which you put your voting bulletins and then seal.

You return the card and the voting envelope in the envelope in which it all came in (it's a recyclable thing), drop it in a mailbox (no postage) in time (max 2 days before actual voting day") and that's it.

Now, with such an easy system and all the required information at hand, I wonder why sometimes less than 40% of us express our opinions. Hey, we have the chance to live in a super-democratic society in which we vote on every aspect of what's going on yet most of us don't make any use of it and then dare complaining about the "system" in which we're (supposedly) in control. Yup, we are in control from A to Z, unlike some other so-called "democracies" but this idea seems to be getting quite fuzzy in the general consensus, given that we're surrounded by much less democratic entities. Furthermore, our system isn't EU-compatible ; the people have too much control to allow the application of EU directives by a central government.

E-voting is only a natural evolution of our current system. It will allow instant and accurate results. I can only hope it will motivate people to vote a bit more, some great changes could come from having another 30% of the population casting votes. Regarding the anonymity of the system, I believe such concerns received great consideration given the fact we're far from being amateurs when it comes to anonymous stuff (Swiss private banking anyone?)... The security is similar to the the system used for e-banking, which has a proven record (we've had e-banking for at least 5 years with no known breach). OTOH, one of the companies behind such projects was the same responsible for digital satellite receivers cards, which have been cracked ages ago...

It's a great test-bed for e-voting systems, which are a great opportunity for newly democratic states to cheaply implement a safe voting infrastructure and other states to implement a proven, tested system at a lesser cost (Florida, you listenin'?).

Now as for the women voting status, they only got it on a federal scale in 1970, which is indeed embarrassing in a country so fundamentaly democratic. But it's getting better, we even had a female President the other year (changes each year, hard to follow!). Sure, when you come from countries where your "representatives" are as representative of your opinions than your tax declaration or party donation check, it's quite funny seeing your local shopkeeper vociferating his claims to the higher establishment on the local congress live tv feed :). It's a small country divided and subdivided in tiny entities, with little overhead from the federal government or even the state itself. Makes the whole thing awfuly bureaucratic, but we also got e-government "booths" which makes it easier to accomplish many administrative procedures. This site will link you to most official resources.

So, before dissing our electoral system with an old cliché, please get your facts straight ot you might once more make 7.5 million foes :)

Cheers,
max