Slashdot Mirror
Quebec Bans Electronic Voting
gfilion writes "The Chief Electoral Officer of Québec tabled an evaluation report that makes a troubling diagnosis of the problems that occurred during the municipal elections of November 6, 2005, in some of the 162 Québec municipalities that used electronic voting. He says: "Not only did the systems fail, but the corrective measure proposed were insufficient, poorly adapted and often came too late." There was a moratorium on electronic voting prior to the November 6 election, it will be extented for future elections."
... is not the banning of e-vote. Believing itself above the system, Quebec completely misses the notion of democracy, as much as aristocrats continue to cling to dwindling legacies in the 21st century.
Please explain how banning a voting system that so far has demonstrated countless flaws is bad for democracy? I am very happy my government took this stance. Last elections there were quite a few close races between representatives, some as close as about 50 votes. If this buggy electronic vote would tip the balance of power from a party to another, it is unfair and bad for democracy. Bug today is an exploit/abuse tommorow. Voting has to be transparent, accurate and there needs to be a paper trail.
Oh and, Quebec is one of the very rare provinces/states/territories in North America that is running serious studies about having a proportional representation modeled election and parliament. Something that could eliminate the "cartel" of a 2-3 party system we see throughout North America. Something good for every individual instead of a few partisans of selected parties. But yes, Quebec misses the notion of democracy!
I don't think the word "democracy" means what you think it means.