The Netherlands Opts For Manual Vote-Count Amid Cyberattack Fears (independent.co.uk)

Bruce66423 writes: Following revelations about the lack of security of the software, the Dutch government has decided to abandon the use of it to count the ballots at the forthcoming election in March. The Independent reports: The decision was taken amidst fears that hackers could influence next month's elections after allegations by the U.S. intelligence agency that Russia hacked into Democrats' emails to help Donald Trump get elected. Russia denies any wrongdoing. Intelligence agencies have warned that three crucial elections in Europe this year in the Netherlands, France and Germany could be vulnerable to manipulation by outside actors. In a letter to the Dutch Parliament, Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said that 'reports in recent days about vulnerabilities in our systems raise the question of whether the results could be manipulated' and that 'no shadow can be allowed to hang over the result.' In previous elections, the ballots were counted by hand locally but regional and national counts were done electronically. But this year, all ballots will be counted by hand after voters make their choice on 15 March. Dutch media have reported that the counting software may not only be insecure but also outdated. The counting software is reported to be distributed by CD-ROM to regional counting centers, where it is set-up on old computers that are internet connected."

Comments

Re:I'll never vote over the net

[by (1706743)]

I like the idea of posting all voting results publicly, where you are identified by something like a randomly generated UUID given to you at the time of voting (or some hash of your various personal information like name and SSN, etc.).

Although it doesn't address "extra" votes, you would at least be able to verify that your vote got counted as you intended, which is something...

Re:I'll never vote over the net

[Caesar Tjalbo]

The story is about the software used to send the results to a central place. So the voting was done by paper ballots but from there on it went digital. The "shocking" (probably not so much anymore) thing was that the particular vulnerability was known for years and pointed out by a student in 2011.