German Court Bans E-Voting As Currently Employed

Kleiba writes "The highest German Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, Federal Constitutional Court) ruled that electronic voting machines like Nedap ESD1 and ESD2 are not permissible in Germany. Der Spiegel, a well-known German newspaper, is featuring article on today's decision (in German; Babelfish translation here) which was the result of a lawsuit by physicist Ulrich Wiesner and his father Joachim Wiesner, a professor emeritus of political science. The main argument against the voting machines in the eyes of the Court is that they conflict with the principle of transparency. 2009 is a major election year for Germany, with parliamentary elections in the fall." Reader Dr. Hok writes "Voting machines are not illegal per se, but with these machines it wasn't possible to verify the results after the votes were cast. The verification procedure by the German authorities was flawed, too: only specimens were tested, not the machines actually used in the elections, and the detailed results (including the source code) were not made public. The results of the election remain legally valid, though."

Comments

Re:Hard copy

[beleriand]

This only makes sense if it is verified immediately by the majority of the voters. If it's just an internal hard copy, a manipulated machine can just "punch out" the same wrong vote that is stored, while fooling the voter on the display.

Now what's the point of complicated and expensive machines which would present a printout to voters, ask for confirmation, etc?

Pen&Paper voting is much cheaper, and very secure.

Re:Yup

[he-sk]

Add in an expert commission to review the machines ...

Fail. The ruling specifically says that evoting has to be transparent to the average citizen that is no computer expert. Good look coming up with a scheme that fulfills this requirement.