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British E-Voting Pilots Announced
rimberg writes "The Department for Constitutional Affairs has announced it is going to trial Electronic voting using the internet and/or telephone. Bridget Prentice, Elections Minister at the department said 'We need to make sure that people can vote in more convenient ways consistent with a modern lifestyle. [...] More and more people, and particularly young people, are using the internet everyday. We need to see if we can use this to encourage people even more to participate in the democratic process.' The Open Rights Group (Think British EFF) have responded by saying 'E-voting threatens the integrity of our elections and we oppose its use in our democracy.'"
I do definitely plan to vote against Labor in the next election.
... now if only I didn't live in the US!
British E-Voting Pilots Announced
I was wondering when they'd let Otto do something more than just fly the plane.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I hope they open up the code so people can see how it works (or fails to work). A paper or electronic receipt system would be crucial, as stated time and time again.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Internet voting is like nuclear power. There are huge advantages but unless you're really careful there is also the potential for major disasters.
Eventually, through the use of Internet voting, it will be possible for people to vote on proposed legislation directly. If there's some issue you care deeply about, e.g. a declaration of war, then you can vote directly. If it's not an issue you care deeply about, you can let your elected representative cast a vote on your behalf. Under the current system your elected representative always gets to cast your vote even when you disagree.
Until the security issues are worked out, governments need to be very very cautious. It wouldn't hurt to start testing and developing Internet voting through things like non-binding opinion polls and possibly certain local elections. It will most likely be decades before Internet voting can be made secure enough to be used in United States federal elections.
"British announce pilots for E-Voting" -- makes more sense then voting machines in cockpits.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Ironically that's also the only candidate worth voting for.
Has anyone ever come up with one really good reason why a paper record of all votes is a bad idea?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
e-voting is unsuitable for anything more serious than who people think will supplant Britney Spears as the next queen of teen pop.
Diebold voting is a fraud, and it happens right in front of the user, on a dedicated machine. The voter can't even see their marked ballot go into a container for verification in the event of computer fraud! It's a sham.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Now when someone tries to cast a vote from home on their spyware-riddled PC, later to find out it wasn't counted or cast incorrectly, then what? Or worse a whole bunch of voters are disenfranchised and don't even know it because of their clunky equipment.
Sorry fellas, you have to leave the internet out of this idea for now. Get the bugs worked out of the stand-alone electronic voting machines first.
All I have to say is my 2 million zombie controlled pc's will be voting for myself in the next election.
Vote By Mail has been a huge success here in Oregon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting/
I can't wait until Perl Script wins a seat in Parliament, or perhaps even position as Prime Minister!
Why not cast the vote electronically and also print a paper-form to be mailed in (absentee ballot, essentially). By phone, have a paper ballot mailed to the voter, approved, and returned.
We don't really get a voice anyway in our two-party (of any power) state. No proportional representation, no referenda on issues (despite being promised them, for, say, the Euro), and a political system that's gamed to work in one way whoever gets into power.
Let's face it.. we've reached a reasonably happy status quo with the current system and nothing too shocking happens under it. The problems we're having now are little different to those of ten or twenty years ago, and the average Brit has just as little say on matters as they ever have. This has led to a disillusioned populace that isn't really THAT interested in voting. I don't vote either, because it a) would have no effect, and b) all the parties look the same and are likely to lie and change their policies once they get in anyway (like Labour did).
Perhaps the dangers of electronic voting are worth it because our current system is so ineffectual. The room for abuse of electronic voting is no worse than the abuse of the entire system of government going on now.
"The hounourable Prime Minister Goatse man of the GNAUK Party wishes to have the floor"
Monstar L
"We need to make sure that people can vote in more convenient ways consistent with a modern lifestyle."
We are trying to make voting as convenient as buying a bag of crisps. why?
If someone can't be bothered to walk or drive half a mile to a polling station and put a cross in a box, do they really *care* who they are voting for? Far too many people treat voting flippantly (I don't like the look of him, I never vote for a woman, He has horrible hair etc) as it is. Would we be any worse of if voters had to take a simple test before voting? If you can't name the leaders of the main 3 parties, and pick their faces out of a lineup, are you really informed enough about the issues to vote sensibly?
Politicians in the UK panic about low turnout and think its because voting is hard. Its not, its just that a
First-Past-The Post system means that most of us have wasted votes, even if the main 2 parties were different, which they aren't.
Proportional representation FTW.
Just a thought.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
If you vote from home there is a risk that you might be voting at gunpoint. How do they take care of that?
...... Involve Diebold then I'm all for it.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
This sounds like a great way to sell your vote to the highest bidder.
That the poor turnout is because voting is too hard...
Nothing to do with the fact that the government received only 34% of the votes but obtained 60% of the seats in parliament. No it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the electoral system throws away two thirds of all votes.
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Most people are really dumb.
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...except while I tell you I am voting for the democrats, I will really vote republican like I always do.
--Cynic Central
Having a paper-trail only works when the voting takes place in polling stations. Voting by SMS or over the Web cannot be secured - but this government is keener on improved turnout than accurate results, as witness the recent expansion in postal voting and the resulting Council of Europe investigation.
Given how much vote tampering already seems to exists, I don't think this can be done securely, and like the parent, I look with extreme suspicion an anything that undermines the secret ballot. Even if it's not done at first, it will happen.
The introduction of the option to vote by post has already caused enough trouble. I won't bother to post all the links, just google "postal vote fraud uk". Now consider how much easier it is for these guys to hire a hacker. We Brits used to consider ourselves superior to nations like the US (hanging chads anyone?) because we had a well tried voting system that worked perfectly (ie: a piece of paper and a blunt soft pencil). Unfortunately we now have a government which believes that democracy requires that equal weight should be given to the views of those who are too apathetic to travel a few hundred yards to a polling station.
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E-voting pilots have been going on in the UK every year since 2002.
If they develope a way to vote securely and legitimately online, why bother with representatives at all? At that point, let direct democracy rule, and let every person vote on every bill, law etc.
i voted in 2003 in local elections in Sheffield (england) online. This has been tried before, so is hardly new to the UK.
Online you entered a PIN (sent to you along with your normal election literature) and were forced to scroll through a pdf of the actual ballot paper, to endure you viewed all candidates, then clicked the appropriate box and that was it
presumably there was some sort of tallying system to prevent me from going to the polling booth round the corner
IIRC there were even e-voting booths in supermarkets for the trial. It worked just fine, I believe
I'm just waiting for myspace to launch the career of a politician
echo $SIGNATURE
Wait, DDS attacks? Why on earth would dentists attack the elections? Aren't they getting paid enough by the public healthcare services? And what are they doing to do, use wind-up false teeth like the Joker? :-)
Now, they might have to worry about DoS/DDoS attacks, but you could always just vote normally if you had to.
it's just gotta be easier to vote. right now it's simply too hard.
...and as a founder member (well, OK, one of the first thousand :) could I point out to UK readers that this would be a great time to join us. Very cheap! Recursive acronym! Promotional T-shirts coming soon! ;)
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
And I'm sure that with a little web surfing we could come up with enough other black hats to fill all the MP slots.
Not that we need to, of course - and they'd be the wrong names, anyhow. Think what an opportunity this is for the trillionaire-"businessmen" who deploy the malware and run the phising scams and spam botnets.
Their own country...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A paper trail won't be necessary with the British NannyCams recording everyone casting their votes.
I'm pretty sure you can't make online/telephone e-voting both anonymous (that is, provably impervious to attempts to track who anyone voted for) and at the same time ensure that one person has one vote.
The problem is that you have to be able to get a one-per-legal-voter token from someplace that can't attach the token number to the vote.
If that's from a server-generated email, the same web server hosting the voting app or the voice retrieval system on the VoteLine, the voter has good reason to believe that (s)he's being tied back to the vote being cast - or at least able to be.
Especially in the current climate, the last thing the world needs is an automated way to generate a national Enemies List.
Voting should be compulsory, but it should include a definite 'none of the above' option. Alternatively, give everybody a 'for' vote and an 'against' vote (Of which you are not obliged to use either). That should really hammer down parties like the BNP, where instead of just having a lot of people who haven't voted *for* them there will be a lot of people who *have* voted against them.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Support the FairTax
Here is the Electoral Commission report for the Rushmoor district from 2003.
Relevant info starts at page 5
http://www.rushmoor.gov.uk/media/adobepdf/interne
Interesting points from the report:
An "encryption key" allowing the matching of a ballot to a registered voter is split, half given to Unisys(the supplier) and half to the Municipal Council.
Basically a Unisys employee dialed-into their servers from a laptop, grabbed the results, formatted them into reports by hand using Word and Access then printed them. It was entirely a 'trust unisys' setup, there weren't even any prescribed controls/procedures for ensuing the laptop was clean.
The report does at least note that they realized this was a problem.
The Department for Constitutional Affairs has announced it is going to trial Electronic voting using the internet and/or telephone.
...Because Bush can't run for another term in the US.
/Yes, I know this news comes from the U.K.
Don't worry, you guys can count on the results from Florida coming in quickly and for the "right" candidate.
I've always wondered why New Labour have passed laws to rewrite the constitution at whim, to arbitrarily punish innocent people and perform mass-surveillance at a level that Orwell never dreamed of... knowing that the people they most fear, the Tory Party, would be guaranteed to win the next election.
Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who run the voting servers decide everything
I have to return some videotapes...
You're going to need it!
From:
another Diebold truster.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
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FairTax baby!
Democracy is the right to a secret ballot to elect a leader at regular intervals.
There is little more to it!
So why mess with the only thing it gives us? Paper is the only way to do this. It separates the vote from the voter so it can never be tracked.
Even postal votes negate this simple principle. The UK has always used screened poll booths with one person allowed in at a time. That way not only the government but also your family, friends or anyone else cannot force you to vote for a particular candidate, or tell who you've voted for (or if you have intentionally "spoiled" your paper - these votes are no longer counted in the UK but might themselves affect turnout if they were!).
What a piece of crap.
More and more people, and particularly young people, are using computer games everyday. Let's make voting a first person shooter game. The last man (m/f) standing gets the vote. We need to see if we can use this to encourage people even more to participate in the democratic process.
Funnily enough I trust liars and sell-outs (most politicians) more than the mob.
Just use Quill & Parchment, you know thats going to work...
No, really !
I will almost certainly vote but I have a problem in that my current Labour MP actually seems like a decent person and votes against the government on numerous occasions, is opposed to ID cards, was opposed to the Iraq war etc.
However I absolutely don't want Labour to get in again so I will have to choose the Conservative guy who unfortunately seems like a bit of a muppet.
With regard to the topic I can't see any benefit in e-voting, my polling station is a 5 minute down the road and I think the majority of people in the UK aren't that much further away from their polling station so if there are people who can't be bothered to walk this distance and make at least a minimum effort then I'm not sure I want them to vote in the first place.
In fact I'd probably be in favour of making it harder to vote in an effort to prevent the kind of clueless labour voting muppets wrecking the country even further. Under the last conservative government when every right-on comedian and media personality was banging on about evil "Thatch" a lot of my friends were very keen on voting labour and I told them then that the Labour party didn't actually have any real beliefs or principles to support them and that their leaders were obviously willing to lie and tell people what they wanted to hear in order to get into power but none of them listened. I think they all agree with me now.
"Don't worry, you guys can count on the results from Florida coming in quickly and for the "right" candidate."
Actually it's the other way around, the most dubious results usually come in slowly with just enough twist to swing the result. Mexico & Ukraine were the classic examples of this.
So the election isn't going the governments way, just enough votes to make the swing are applied to the corrupt voter district. The later this is done, the more certain the needed swing amount is known and so the smaller the amount needed to swing.
I find it strange that we're even discussing a system that can never be verified with clear known attack vectors.
That's begging the question. Why do they 'need' to make sure people can vote in more convenient ways? Isn't that likely to lead to less informed and less able voters overall?
For that matter, why do they 'need' to encourage folks to vote? Voting is a privilege, and if one chooses not to exercise that privilege, that's one's own look-out.
It seems to me that the right thing to do is to discourage voting. Charging $20 (or the equivalent in your local currency--10 pounds over in the UK) to vote; it's not so much that it's unaffordable for anyone (indeed, even the poor spend more than that on beer and cigarettes in a week), but it's enough to make folks think before voting. Even better would be to give a simple test: pick the current holder of the seat for which you're voting; if you don't even know who's currently holding that seat, do you really have any business voting? Ideally, the franchise would be limited: have a slate of perhaps two dozen different qualifications (e.g. college degree; married with three or more children; salary of $50,000/year or more; net worth of $100,000 or more; ownership of 4 or more acres of land; prior or current military service; jury service within the last year; IQ of 95 or greater; prior holder of public office; and so forth), and anyone who meets three of them can vote. Make it a fairly broad slate--my suggestions are from the perspective of a middle-class citizen, but no doubt others could suggest appropriate qualifications (union leadership, maybe?).
The problem is not that too few people vote; it is that too many do. The margin of victory in the popular vote in the recent presidential elections has been less than the number of people with 80 IQs: when the side that can swing the most mental defectives is the victor, that can't be good.
We contributed with our taxes to the financing and facilitation of the killing of between 30000 and 600000 human beings (depending who you believe), based in completely bogus evidence by a few illuminati and their PR gurus.
To think that Mr Blair and Brown go to bussiness meetings, schools and general parochial political tumbfolery and that people receive them like the celebrities they are, is frankly shocking.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.