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Dutch Commission Deals Blow To Electronic Voting
hcdejong writes "The Dutch commission that has been investigating the electoral process presented its final report yesterday (Dutch). The conclusions and recommendations are devastating to the current Dutch practice of voting electronically, and to plans for voting via the internet. Paraphrasing from the report: The deputy minister for the interior Bijleveld said in an initial response (Dutch only) that she would revoke the certification of the current generation of electronic voting machines. The minister plans to present an official Cabinet position on the electoral process in two months. The next elections (for the European Parliament, 2009) may see a return to paper ballots." Read on for a translation of some of the key points from the report.
Paraphrasing from the report:
Paraphrasing from the report:
- The current electronic voting machines do not comply with the basic requirements of an election (e.g. transparency, controllability, integrity).
- The paper ballot still offers the best way to comply with these basic requirements.
- The commission recommends using an electronic system to generate the paper ballot. The voter must be allowed to check the ballot before it is deposited in a locked box.
- Votes can be counted electronically (by scanning the paper ballots), with the option of a manual recount.
The questions are how easy is it to rig, and how easy is it to hide that it's rigged.
As long as electronic voting systems make both easier, they're no good substitute for paper voting.
Online voting has always seemed to be a REALLY bad idea for me. Too easy to manipulate a vote...to easy to call someone and have them log on (which brings up the "no campaining near polling places" rules)...just too easy. Voting should take effort - if you go somewhere and spend some time, it means more and you are more apt to make sure of what you are doing.
Agreed, at least in the US, there should be some provision for those who work long hours to go vote during the day (national holiday or something).
In case you don't know Holland like Belgium is a coalition goverment, that means we do NOT have a single party who wins the election, unlike say Britain, France and the US.
For a long time now it has taken ages to get this coalition together, it is usually done by the largest party (but not a majority) exploring what other parties are close to its ideas and are willing to work together so they can have a majority. The problem is that this ALWAYS takes a lot of time, sometimes months. So who cares about the speed of counting, what does 1 day spend counting mean if the goverment then needs 2-3 months to get together?
We are so obssesed with instant results that perhaps we fail to realize that we add speed as a requirement when it isn't needed. "We need the election results as soon as possible". Why? "... just because". Drop the speed requirement and then see what kind of system you can come up with.
On a side note, the belgium goverment at the moment is taking a long time to form a new goverment, whole months have gone by without a party in charge (in the dutch system the current goverment has to stop and this leaves an effective power vacuum during formation) and yet the world keeps on turning. What about an experiment, we put all politicians in jail for a year, and see what happens. My bet is the same as usual, nothing at all, but at a greatly reduced cost.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you want to know how proper Internet Voting System works, then read Estonian E-Voting System - General Description
The only prerequisite for a country to use the system is that it has to deploy PKI at first...