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Seeking The Source For Ireland's E-Voting System
WeeBull writes "Michael Cunningham from p45.net tried to request 'the source code of the electronic voting system first used in Ireland's May 2002 general election, plus any supporting technical documentation supplied to the Department of Environment and Local Government including the functional specifications' under Ireland's Freedom of Information legislation. The result wasn't what he expected ..."
Americans have too been scammed by voting machines owned by corporations. Go figure.
t _G roup_Manipulates/secret_group_manipulates.html
w Me ssage?topicID=7.topic
http://www.americanfreepress.net/11_10_02/Secre
http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html
http://pub103.ezboard.com/fsoldiervoicefrm4.sho
Over in Germany, we use some of the least advanced voting machinery
imagineable. Paper and pencil. Votes are counted by hand, with peer
review, faxed in and published in detail in the newspapers.
So far we didn't have any real problems with fraud, ambiguous votes or
anything like that. And the results are usually in by the evening or the next
day.We have like 70 million inhabitants and I don't see a reason why this
shouldn't scale up.
So is there any real reason to replace that with a system that is not
transparent and where you have to blindly trust some tech companies?
Look at the mess in Florida in the last US presidential elections. The system there worked as everything was on paper, so they just needed to go through all the ballot notes and re-count and re-evaluate them. After the extensive re-counts and press and public auditing of the result, it was found to be correct.
Whether or not the result was 'correct' is still open to debate in many parts. But that aside I recall the recount as being a lot more involved than just a simple recounting of ballots. Have we all forgotten how we laughed at the description of pregnant and hanging chads (cracked me up anyway) and the counters trying to guess voter intention from dimples in the ballot papers. Very scientific and auditable system indeed.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I've just found this document - which appears to be the minutes of an Irish government selection commmittee debating the merits (amongst other things, search for neda) of this system.
Interesting quote: "The integrity of the electoral process will be assured for both the electorate and candidates"
Not all of the electorate it would seem.
Further on in the document
[emphasis mine]
"(2) No equipment may be approved for the purposes of subsection (1) unless a full technical description of the said equipment (including all source code and information regarding independent testing and verification relating thereto) has been laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and a resolution approving a draft of the order approving the said equipment has been passed by each such House.".
Intesting hey?
Thats just one of the committee's opinion - and it looks like they got slapped down - but if I was Irish, I'd be finding out who this Mr Gilmore was & voting for him.
No, they didn't get slapped down. The government ran a large number of tests on the system, but because they only had it for the trial run, could not make the source public.
Hopefully (I am too cynical to say "presumably") the source will be made available on the pruchase of the full system. While this is less than ideal, it's a start. Incidentally, the relevant quote about making the source public is given in one of the posts above.
My gripe with this system is the choice of underlying system that is being used. I shit you not, it is a custom Windows embedded, and the database is a modified Access one. That thought does not fill me with confidence
Rational thought is the only true freedom
all sourcecode of the three systems used is available for download and public review on the site of the federal government.
o kunnl/broncodes/Cdoku7nnl.htm
http://www.verkiezingen.fgov.be/Nouveau/NieuwNl/D
(clik on one of the three software systems and then on 'Hier')
Commercial companies usually refuse to release sourcee code on the basus (reasonable) that others could rip it of, despite its being copyright, and it would be very difficult and expensive to trace and sue them.
Bit in this special cas, that doesn't apply. If every suppier of voting software has to provide the source of their system, any supplier who thinks he has lost a contract to a ripoff of his own system can obtain the source code and check it. Piracy would be trivially easy to expose, and a powerful ally (the Government) under pressure to clean up the electoral system.
So the usual excuse of Commercial Confidentiallity does not apply, and and any seller hiding behind it should be excluded from the tender.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
In January, 2002 the State Elections Board approved two closed source touch screen voting systems, the ES&S Votronic DRE and the GBS Accu-Touch EBS 100 DRE.
This spring I raised the system integrity issues with the Board, and persuaded them to revoke the certifications.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Your Vote is Now the Property of a Private Corporation
Now recounts and audits are being barred so as not to violate the "privacy and trade secrets" of the the company whose software is used to count the votes. Check out some of the excellent commentary on this issue by "Thom Hartmann" at:
"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"
"Now Your Vote Is The Property Of A Private Corporation"
An excerpt: (credit to Thomm Hartmann)
"Chuck Hagel was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska. What Hagel's website fails to disclose is that about 80 percent of those votes were counted by computer-controlled voting machines put in place by the company affiliated with Hagel. Built by that company. Programmed by that company.
"When Charlie Matulka (the opponent) requested a hand count of the vote in the election he lost to Hagel, his request was denied because Nebraska has a just-passed law that prohibits government-employee election workers from looking at the ballots, even in a recount. The only machines permitted to count votes in Nebraska, he said, are those made and programmed by the corporation formerly run by Hagel.
Scary?
-Scott
The web site and source code for the Australian system referred to in the article is worth a look.
It's quite simple. Intentionally, as the ACT states in their design goals (http://www.elections.act.gov.au/EVACS.html). The source includes the client and server application components--160 files and 12739 lines of very straigtforward C. (Of course, that doesn't include the OS/libs.)
I've browsed through a fair bit of the code, and everything I've seen is GPL. Ensuring accessibility to software used for public elections is, I think, a Very Good Thing. (I wouldn't mind seeing a law that required all election software be GPL'd.)
The sensible thing to do is to use technology to make the existing system more efficient. Ie use scanners and optical recognition to count the ballot papers. Fall back to traditional counting if there is any doubt or if the technology fails.
The Irish Lotto (nation Lottery) is an example of such a paper/electronic hybrid system in operation.
The current system is analogous to having our votes shipped abroad, counted using an unknown system, by persons unknown with no outside review allowed. Having all the votes shredded and then a final answer announced with no possibility for recount.
Its amazing, when it comes to technology people in general are so clueless. Even very fundamental changes in the workings of our democracy can be changed with very little resistence.
This isn't directly related to the post, but I'm wondering whether electronic voting stops people from deliberately spoiling their ballot.
In the UK, we still use a paper voting system in general elections, and I (and a number of friends) have deliberately spoilt our ballot papers in past elections, to indicate a RON vote (Re-Open Nominations -- basically, we believe that all of the candidates listed are total wankers, and want other people to stand instead.)
It would be a damn shame if the ability to vote RON is lost, since there will be no other way for people to register their disgust with the slime presenting itself for election.
Who was it who said that the best person for King/President/Emperor was the one who didn't want the job?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.