Ireland Rejects E-Voting for Upcoming Elections

colmmacc writes "Following months of lobbying by groups such as Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting and a damning and comprehensive report by Ireland's Commission on Electronic Voting, the Irish Minister for the Environment has bowed to pressure and conceded that the system has not been proven safe and has decided not to use Evoting for the forthcoming elections on June 11th.. This is a very welcome move following 6 months of indignation on the part of the Minister and refusals to meet with concerned groups."

Open Source?

[mfh]

> the Irish Minister for the Environment has bowed to pressure and conceded that the system has not been proven safe

Well, until an Open Source Evoting system is available, and the kinks are flushed out, many closed source systems will keep trying to get this contract or that contract. The simple fact is, they should all be designing Internet voting using the Online Banking Model, and keeping the source code open so that it can be truly stress-tested and understood.

E-voting

[JosKarith]

There is an absolute fortune waiting for the first company that can produce a reliable and secure e-voting system. So why do we see so many shoddy solutions that show their shortcomings the moment they go live?
The technology is there. It just needs someone to say "Right, let's stop pissing about and actually make something that people can have a bit of faith in."

interesting

[spangineer]

Pennsylvania's primary was just a few days ago, so I was thinking about this issue. I'm a college student at Penn State (30,000+ undergrads) and on day of the primary, I heard that about 100 people voted. Meanwhile, when we had elections earlier this year for student government, a much greater percentage of the student body voted (though not a majority). The difference? To vote in the student election, we simply had to log on to the internet to vote. For the "real" election, we had to go a central building on campus.

I don't mean to say that convenience was the only consideration, because many students (myself included) used absentee ballots, but realistically, I think it's clear that many more students would vote if they were able to vote online. Online voting would probably greatly increase voter turnout throughout the U.S., simply because people wouldn't have to be late for work or skip lunch or whatever to head down to the polling place.

Obviously, security is a major issue, but it's not like voter fraud is impossible under our current system. Realistically, if done properly, I think online voting would probably do more good for our elections than anything.

Look and Learn

[Anonymous Coward]

if its not safe for them (perhaps indeed the whole concept is flawed), what makes you think its safe for YOU ?

its a shame people have been convinced by institutions that somehow pressing a button on an electronic machine constitutes voting in a democracy, "yeah you did vote honestly, you can trust us"

That is the way the Constitution works

[Anonymous Coward]

"Too bad for the US. I can't be the only one that feels that, come November, we will have a president that once again did not get a majority vote."

This has nothing at all to do with e-voting or anything like this. The reason this can happen is the Constitution, and the electoral college system. The majority vote in the US in the Presidential election has never mattered. If you want to change this, work to get rid of the Electoral College system.

I can't be the only one wondering...

[The Wicked Priest]

Why are elections under the jurisdiction of the Minsiter for the Environment?

Re:E-voting

[banana fiend]

I have to disagree with this

It's not just a case of "stop pissing about" - you have to develop a system that is
1)Unbelievably simple to use
2)COMPLETELY secure
3)Leaves a completely correct and permanent trail for recounting
4)Relatively cheap to roll out

Never mind that paper voting has never been all 3 above, a voting system has to be extremely good to be accepted by people who know the only true power we have over our government is our ability to vote for or against them.

Systems with that kind of quality are NEVER easy to implement. Ask anybody who develops OS's used in Nuclear Power Plants. Or people who have to go through QA for mobile phone system control software

Re:Open Source?

[mcx101]

keeping the source code open so that it can be truly stress-tested and understood.

Even Micro$oft provides source code to government users for security review. Other proprietary developers can do the same; it's not an advantage to use open source in this case.

Re:Open Source?

[mindbooger]

Online banking is decidedly _not_ anonymous, by design. Entirely different solution.

Re:interesting

[The Wicked Priest]

There's an easier way to make it so that people have time to vote, without the insecurity of online voting: Make election day a national holiday. It should be.

Not that I'd count on increased turnout, even then. For that, we need more inspiring candidates in the races.

voter turnout

[John_Sauter]

Online voting would probably greatly increase voter turnout throughout the U.S., simply because people wouldn't have to be late for work or skip lunch or whatever to head down to the polling place.

I am not so sure that greater voter turnout would improve our government. Perhaps it is better that only those who are willing to be late for work or skip lunch vote. Perhaps that class of people do a better job of selecting our representatives.
John Sauter ([e-mail])

Re:Open Source?

[modecx]

No, Open Source's advantage in this case is so WE, and EVERYONE ESLE can understand who has pissed in the pool.

Not to sound paranoid, but I'm not entirely trusting of *my* government to make sure everything is kosher. Shit, I'm sure some (government) people would rather have it very un-kosher if they had the choice.

Proof of presence and intention

[toesate]

I think two of the important requirements in any voting process is the need for proof of presence and proof of intention.

In e-voting, proof of presence could be possible/feasible.

But proof of intention in e-voting is, I think a hard nut. In a physical voting/polling booth, each voter is on their own, to make up their mind and choice, with minimal outside influence, in a so call "holy ground", making a vote untaint from intention. In e-voting, the voting act can take place anywhere, and possibly subjected to a lot of outside influences, and tainting the voter intention.

I am assuming(might be wrong) e-voting means the ability to vote from anywhere with internet access. It is not clear from the report.

Re:IQ(Irelander) > IQ(USian)

[Anonymous Coward]

Guinness. Budweiser. That's not enough evidence for 'ya?

Re:Open Source?

[siriuskase]

Not only must a voting system be secure, it must alwo be trustworthy. I don't see how any closed system would be subject to the verification required for the level of trust required. A closed system works only when the "secrets" are held by a completely trustworthy group of insiders.

Re:Open Source?

[Woogiemonger]

So are we going to see some concerted work on an open source alternative.

This doesn't sound like it's such an insurmountable open source project really. I mean, if you want to put your name on a project limited by only the sky, this seems like it. I mean, as far as the security design, that will take a security expert or two, but aside from that, isn't it a whole lot of busywork that amateur open-source programmers can probably handle? Is there a promising open-source eVoting project in development anywhere?

Re:Open Source?

[lynx_user_abroad]

No, Open Source's advantage in this case is so WE, and EVERYONE ESLE can understand who has pissed in the pool.

You are deceiving yourself if you think access to the source mitigates this problem.

Imagine: You go into a voting booth and face an e-vote machine. You have personally examined all the sources for this machine and, based on your perfect understanding of all things software, and the extensive amount of time you spent going over the 300+ source files (when you should have been paying attention to the issues) you have concluded that this one piece of software (unlike all others) actually is bug free.

How exactly do you go about convincing yourself that the "Version 11.225b(build 1107 CERTIFIED)" printed in the bottom righthand corner came from the printf statement you recall reading on line 465 of assure.c and not from some PRINT "Version 11.225b(build 1107 CERTIFIED)" statement in the BASIC program some technician loaded onto the machine while you weren't looking?

I suppose you could ask the machine. "Are you lying?"

"No, Dave. I am a HAL 9000. No HAL 9000 has ever lied or distorted information...

Re:Open Source?

[monkeydo]

It really, really, really, really, doesn't matter one whit whether or not the e-voting system is open or not. The "secrets" (i.e., what software is actually loaded on the machines) will always need to be held by some trusted group. The degree to which this group is tursted determinies how much influence they can have. In the paper ballot world, we mitigate risks by partition access that individuals have to ballots into small districts. In the e-voting world there will always be some group that has way to much access for their trust level. That's why e-voting will always be less secure than paper voting.

Re:interesting

[sampson7]

"Not that I'd count on increased turnout, even then. For that, we need more inspiring candidates in the races."

And if we want more inspiring candidates, we need increased voter turnout.

Amazing how that works, isn't it?

Re:Open Source?

[modecx]

No, absolutely, you've got a good point.

I'm not a programmer (was a CS student at one point, but that was another world ago). I have no interest in programming, and I personally don't have the skillset. Therefore, I have no personal interest in examining the code on such a voting machine. However I do know that there are people out there who are interested thusly, and I would have to trust that thier examination was thorough, and I would also have to trust their honesty.

The thing is, I would trust such a person more than I would trust the government. These individuals are more accountable; they've got their professional reputations at stake in a world wide arena--whereas a contractor for the government is hidden behind layers and layers of bureaucracy and red tape, and no individual would be accountable.

I use Linux, and a ton of programs that run on top of it. I haven't a clue what makes it work deep down inside, and I know that even if I were interested in it's innerworking that I would have to spend untold hours trying to get the gist of it, or even to find a single line of problematic code. Regardless, I trust in the work many hundreds of people (but I trust in the many hundreds of people watching intently over thier shoulders more).

Re:That is the way the Constitution works

[DavidTC]

You start out good, nitpicker, but you are incorrect. You are correct when you're talking about people who didn't get the majority popular vote, but not when you talk about 'winning' the poopular vote...all you need to win the popular vote is a plurality, not a majority. (And the same with the electorial vote, in fact.)

To win a majority you'd need to get >50 of the votes, to win a plurality you'd just need to get more than anyone else.

While I don't know where you got your list, and how people got on it, it is incorrect for how you're using it..President Clinton, at least, did win the popular and electorial votes, because he got more votes than anyone else. However, he didn't win some hypothetical majority vote, getting about 6 million more votes his first election and 8 million more votes the second election to the next runner up, while in his first election Perot got 20 million votes, and in the second he got 8 million. Thus leaving Clinton with something like 45% of the vote the first election and 49% the second...both of which handily beat the Republican's vote totals, but were not a majority.

The fact peopel confuse majority with plurality does not alter the fact that very few elections in the US have had differing popular and electorial votes.

Re:Open Source?

[modecx]

No, I understood your point fully, however I see alot of negative hand waving and chicken little synrome.

What the heck do you suggest? You're obviously the security expert, and l33t h4xx0r 3x7r0d1|/|4r3. Do we allow an obviosly oorly designed (and non-peer-reviewed) system do a very important task? Or do we just throw our arms up and say "I give up", then kill ourselves? Or....?

I say that it IS possible to know when something in a WELL DESIGNED system is awry. (not just software, I'm talking a system--be it hardware, software, networking, redudancy, and constant checking by people--as a whole) The problems you point out about an open system are equally as possible in a closed system. Hell, these same problems exist in paper ballot voting (can you trust the poll people and the counters, etc. etc..)

Do I have any idea about how to design such a system? Yeah, I have a few (mostly common sense thigns), but I can't see the forest and the trees; that's going to take quite a few brilliant and motivated people.

As a designer of a system like this, there's a few hypothetical questions I'd have to ask myself: Can I account for every single possible contingency? No. Obviously, to err is human; thus every creation of ours is possibly flawed. Can I do the best that I can to ensure that few . Absolutely. Did I do the best I could?

It's the answer to the last question that would let me sleep at night. Should the designers of many of these voting systems be sleeping well?