E-Voting Done Right - In Australia

tehanu writes "After all the furor over e-voting in America, Wired News has an article about e-voting done right in Australia. An important factor is that all of the software is open-source. The company responsible actually seems to have given consideration to the integrity of the democratic process, too - from the lead engineer: 'Why on earth should (voters) have to trust me -- someone with a vested interest in the project's success? A voter-verified audit trail is the only way to 'prove' the system's integrity to the vast majority of electors, who after all, own the democracy.' They also have scathing words for Diebold: 'The only possible motive I can see for disabling some of the security mechanisms and features in their system is to be able to rig elections. It is, at best, bad programming; at worst, the system has been designed to rig an election.' In general they are 'gob-smacked' by the whole situation with electronic voting machines in the US right now."

Re:Open source?

[webtre]

provide voting receipts which can be counted independently, by hand

*cough* Florida *cough* *cough*

Holy fook!

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody that actually gives a shit about the good of society rather than just trying to grab as much for themselves as possible! Whatta weirdo!

Re:Simple solution for e-voting

[trailerparkcassanova]

This could greatly improve efficiency of vote buying. The money for the vote could be transfered directly into your account.

Re:Question

[Misch]

there's not much to be pro about in america these days

"What do you mean there's not much to be pro about? America, she's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huuuuuge.... tracts of land!'

Re:My goodness!

[cdrudge]

Except you will have some voters who will think that:
- they could vote twice, once with each method
- that one was just a practice vote and the other was one that counted
- are confused that there are two voting methods and don't know what to do, so don't vote at all
- paper discriminates against tree huggers and caters to the logging community
- electronic voting discriminates against technology luddites and caters to the techno-savvy

Re:Open source?

[gladbach]

dyslexic chads maybe....

Re:Simple solution for e-voting

[ydnar]

Diebold makes those too.

Re:Open source?

[hazem]

dyslexic chads maybe....

Right, but LA OGRE was not a candidate....

Wait, maybe he was!

Re:Open source?

[Dirtside]

Right, but LA OGRE was not a candidate....

Wait, maybe he was!

What do you mean, not a candidate? He's the President now! :)

Re:My goodness!

[Qrlx]

Paper is well known to be discriminatory. How often have you seen a black sheet of paper in a ream of 500 white ones? We will not allow paper's prejudicial beliefs to sway our core Democratic values.

Re:To encourage competitors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Competitors? You mean we run 5 or 6 elections in parallel all counted by private voting networks, and the government get to choose the results of the most favourable outcome? Surely thats a healthy free market solution.

Re:Open source?

[FooGoo]

How about a moderation option for conspiracy crackpots?