Slashdot Mirror
In France, a Showcase of What Can Go Wrong With Online Voting
Bruce66423 submits a report from The Independent, writing that "a French primary election is made the stuff of farce after journalists defeat the 'secure' election system." From the article: An 'online-primary,' claimed as 'fraud-proof' and 'ultra secure,' has turned out to be vulnerable to multiple and fake voting. The four-day election has also the exposed the poisonous divisions created within the centre-right Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) by the law permitting gay marriage which took effect last week. ... What was already shaping up as a tense and close election was thrown into utter confusion at the weekend. Journalists from the news site Metronews proved that it was easy to breach the allegedly strict security of the election and vote several times using different names."
Journalists from the news site Metronews proved that it was easy to breach the allegedly strict security of the election and vote several times using different names.
Adds a new meaning to "vote for me".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I like this system. Each vote costs €3 and you can vote as often as you like. In other countries money buys you access, influence and power but we pretend that everyone is equal. France sweeps away the hypocrisy and makes it explicit: mo' money, mo' votes.
Vive La France, Vive La Révolution!
Clearly its not that internet voting cannot work, its that this was implemented poorly, credit cards are easy to get your hands on, what really matters is the vote verification. Nothing prevents a person from stealing vote by mail ballots, and using a fake signature to send in the vote, whether the vote is tallied is another matter.
Now if you used multi-factor verification, along with biometrics (webcam photo) and IP logging, you would be able to sample and defeat fake votes.
Maybe centre-right by American standards, but more like borderline far-right by French ones.
Is "safe online (PUT YOUR SERVICE HERE)" as much an oxymoron as the much-malinged "military intellegence" back in the '60s? I see lots of stories about both sides of online voting, but I've not seen an answer to the basic question of "is it possible to have a safe hack-proof online voting system." I don't mean an assessment of whether Siebold or any of the other idiots in this market have fool-proof systems, but whether or not voting can be done safely online even if Brother Stallman designed it. My own feeling is that it's like putting something critical such as access to power grids online - not a good idea unless there's no other way to get what you need. I don't really see what's so hard about schlepping down to your local school and voting once a year or so. If that's too hard for you, don't bother voting because the hard work of making an informed choice is likely beyond your capabilities as well. (Does not apply to people who can't get to a voting booth for several of many good reasons, and mail-in ballots has worked for these people for decades.)
That journalists find and publish it is something that went right. The worst that could happen (or is happening actually) is that noone makes public their findings, or they are forbidden/punished by law if they try to see or warn if there any "weak" point. And of course, the people behind the election, both politicians and company.
It is a crime to vote multiple times. That crime will not be prosecuted. It is a much bigger crime to expose that the system is corrupt and open to fraud. That crime will be prosecuted.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Also their appeal commission for electoral matters is named C.O.N.A.R.E which translates pretty much to "asshole" in french.
That name became popular after their tried electing a leader for their party last year, the two sides stuffed ballots, they couldn't find any kind of agreement so far and they now have officially two different leaders and two dozens simultaneous "general secretary" title holders.
The only political form of opposition they actually opposed since the new president got elected was on the topic of gay marriage by showing everyone the immense depth of their evilness, trying to provoke insurrection, throwing racist and homophobic insults and repeating nonsense.
Finally about 3 out of 4 people at the head of this party is either being prosecuted or has already be condemned for various offenses such as buying people's votes, stealing public money, having dead people vote.
Lately Nicolas sarkozy and Eric Woert (previous minister of economy) are being tried for, oh greatness, abusing an old senile lady, the richest in France, the owner of the cosmetics brand Loreal. Suitcases full of euros for financing Sarkozy's campaign.
Another one still Sarkozy but with Claude Guéant (previous minister of intrior), inculpated for receiving money from Muhamar Khadaffi. Possibly up to 50 million dollars.
The minister of interior just before that was Brice Hortefeux and this nice dude with the looks of a wafen SS was condemned for "racist insults" towards militants of hist own party, the mighty UMP.
The present auto proclaimed leader of the UMP is JeanFrancois Copé. His little personal problem is he has been photographed in the house of a convicted weapon dealer, the same person who he signed fiscal exemptions for million euros when he was minister of economy.
And the list goes on and on and on...
Those people, they are rot. They represent everything that is bad in hour country. This is why we can't have nice things.
A few facts :
OK, so electronic ballots are proved to be less "secure" than paper ballots, again. The UMP is proved to be technologically illiterate, again. Yawn.
Nobox: Only simple products.
it sounds like a voting fit for a reality show.
"To register their vote on-line, Parisians were supposed to make a credit-card payment of €3 and give the name and address of someone on the city’s electoral roll."
sounds to me it's just a scam to get 3 euros out of people.
1) have an election about an extremely heated issue to some groups.
2) provide them a means to vote multiple times by paying 3 euros per vote
3) get money from said groups.
it doesn't look to me like they're going to refund that money.
because eh, the whole concept of how it's done goes against ultra secure and quite frankly against any principles that goes with modern voting. the whole concept is anything but secure or fair. it doesn't matter how good the code behind the service is even.
couple of good ground rules:
a) voting is a right - it is to be provided gratis for every adult.
b) check identity somehow(pay id cards from social security or whatever).
c) default enforced(unless disabled etc) voting method should not be a process that is observable to people even if a voter "wants" it to be.
d) if you need to limit amount of candidates have them collect supporters lists(this is usually easily done for people serious about being a candidate, since the limit should be relatively low). these lists can be forged and people can sign the list for multiple candidates, but that only gets them to be a candidate.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I really do not like Nicolas Sarkozy and his politics, but calling him "the worst criminal ..." is the kind of hyperbole that discredit the rest of your message.
Before rushing to adopt online voting, we really need to ask ourselves, what exactly is wrong with just voting normally that voting online solves.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The only political form of opposition they actually opposed since the new president got elected was on the topic of gay marriage
OTOH, time is hard for right wing opposition, since the so-called left wing François Hollande is pursuing the exact same economic policy as former right wing president Nicolas Sarkozy.
During the presidential campaign, François Hollande said he would fight finance power and renegociate the treaty on stability, coordination and governance (TSCG), which commits signatories to austerity. He did none of this.
I think it is almost a given that certain centre-right political parties (mostly christian democrats in EU countries) attract the type of career politician that is out for power (because his/her party is almost always in government coalition due to the political place in the spectrum), and then after 20 years or so the rot sets in and instead of being a centre-right christian democrat party (religiously conservative, socially between right-wing liberal and labour party) they become the "Party of the Power".
What you can do then in your country is to vote the bastards out and watch them flail and squirm amongst themselves--let the infighting start!
In many countries there has been great progress once the Party of Power is excised from government; and in 4-8 years they can come back, chastised, leaner, and closer to their original centre-right christian democrat ideals, with the powermongers retired or in jail.
IMPORTANT: this mechanism only works in democratic countries with a representative voting system, i.e. the entire democratic world except for commonwealth (US, UK, Canada and Australia IIRC). So in order to let this cleansing mechanism work you must first change the constitution so that every party with more than 3 or 5% of the popular vote can get in governing coalition. For the US this would probably mean a Green Party government with the Republican-Democrat Power Party in opposition. It may seem a bit far-fetched this century, I admit...
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?