Ireland Rejects E-Voting for Upcoming Elections 192
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Open Source? (Score:3, Funny)
Unless the system ate somebody or gave someone herpes I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that it isn't safe. Perhaps he was looking for the word "reliable" ?
Re:Open Source? (Score:2)
Re:Open Source? (Score:2)
Re:Open Source? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Open Source? (Score:2, Interesting)
This was my favorite part of the story: "The Fine Gael Spokesman on the Environment, Bernard Allen, claimed Minister Cullen had tampered with the very essence of democracy and had wasted taxpayers' money.
Mr Cullen rejected the claims but said today had not been a great
Re:Open Source? (Score:2)
This reminds me of the famous finding of a UK tribunal that "the Minister had misdirected himself".
Re:Open Source? (Score:2, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Open Source? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Open Source? (Score:2)
Say that you can trust the open source community to expose any flaws in the voting system... It doesn't matter if you can't trust the government to actually deploy that software when it says that it does.
That's his point.
The only way to ensure that a vote was cast at all, let alone correctly, is to have some sort of physical redundancy. Something that can be counted by a bunch of humans.
Re:Open Source? (Score:2, Insightful)
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--b
Re:Open Source? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open Source? (Score:5, Informative)
After all gnu.free [gnu.org]'s website says:
Governments indicate they'd like a secure e-voting system. If the open source movement can't deliver one, we can bet a private closed source company will.
Re:Open Source? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open Source? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Open Source? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 anywh
Info: See page 20 of report (Re:Open Source?) (Score:2)
Yes, an open source solution automatically fulfil this requirement without fuss, and serve the needs to inspect, and gain electorate confident.
There is an open source voting system (Score:2, Informative)
Why is Open Source any better? (Score:2)
Give me a paper and a pencil and c
Re:Open Source? (Score:2)
Excepting for the obvious fact that online banking is predicated on rigorous identification of the user while the most basic tenet of voting is rigorous defense of the anonymity of the user. This is the fatal, pretty much unfixable, flaw in using the Internet to vote.
Not having anonymity when you vote is all well and good in a kind and benevolent society. But as soon as the people in power can instill a little fear in the minds of voters that Bi
IQ(Irelander) > IQ(USian) (Score:5, Funny)
Evidence, at last!
Re:IQ(Irelander) > IQ(USian) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IQ(Irelander) IQ(USian) (Score:2, Funny)
IQ(Irish) > IQ(*)
IQ(Irish Govt.) ~ IQ(US Govt.) (Score:2)
I'm sure the populations are the same both ways about e-voting. The majority don't know anything / give two hoots, a minority support their party rigging the elections and another minority love to cry out about civil liberties etc etc and kick up a fuss.
(I'm not trying to belittle that last group - but lets face it, most people worrying about things like e-voting are 'activists' - the main population are sit-on-their-arsists)
Our government are still morons for getting into this sit
It's really a difference in features and testing (Score:2)
Re:It's really a difference in features and testin (Score:2)
Your onto something! Fianna Fail (the main party in government, they dwarf their coalition partners roughly 10:1) had to drop "Republican" from their name [p45blogs.net] on the machines because it wouldn't fit (though the link suggests that is a lie). Guess they needed more time to check their patches.
E-voting (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Re:E-voting (Score:5, Insightful)
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:E-voting (Score:2, Interesting)
A UI consisting of a simple form displayed on a touchscreen, with a confirm/deny when a choice is made. Not too hard.
2)COMPLETELY secure
Physical security. No connection to other devices/internet. Stored data encrypted with a _different key_ for each machine so that if one is stolen the whole system isn't compromised.
3)Leaves a completely correct and permanent trail for recounting
Okay, this is the potential toughie. One possible solution is for an internally stored s
Re:cost (Score:2)
That depends on which government you're looking at. I don't know if you're in the USA, or which state you live in if you are, but in my state, voting systems are purchased and funded by the local town or city, and they never have huge sums of money sitting around. Most state governments don't, either, for that matter. Uncle Sam may, but he's not the one buying the machines.
Re:E-voting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:E-voting (Score:2, Interesting)
Any algorithm that requires a phd in encryption science to understand will be unverifiable by the typical voter. If the mechanics of the system are not transparent, we will be handing over the cornerstone of our political system to an
Re:E-voting (Score:2, Interesting)
First, there's the highly public nature of this beast - it has to be perfect and yet all forces combine to try and force it out at the earliest opportunity. And missing the earliest date is treated as a sign of systemic failure. In this case from Ireland, nobody says there are problems, just that there isn't enough evidence to convince the reviewers to a suitable degree of confidence that there won't be
Mrs Doyle... (Score:4, Funny)
Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on GO ON!
interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:interesting (Score:1)
Is it not possible that many students were still registered at their principal domicile, and went home to vote (or voted absentee if the travel was onerous)?
While I re-registered with my student address - so I could participate in elections that actually matter (Local) - many MANY students in the dorms voted at their permanent addresses.
Re:interesting (Score:2)
Re:interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:interesting (Score:2)
What if an organization gave you $5.
Re:interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'd count on increased turnout, even then. For that, we need more inspiring candidates in the races.
Re:interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
And if we want more inspiring candidates, we need increased voter turnout.
Amazing how that works, isn't it?
Re:interesting (Score:2)
Re:interesting (Score:2)
voter turnout (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Re:interesting (Score:2)
Did a geek, with long hair and a beard, always wears T shirts, win student body President?
Re:interesting (Score:2)
Hey! No they won't!
Wait, yeah they will. Heh. *has flashback of econ 020 in the forum, screams*
Look and Learn (Score:2, Insightful)
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"
A shame (Score:3, Interesting)
We only just got the evoting system in Ireland and used it in the last election. It seems a shame to scrap it now. It's much faster and surely more accurate than counting by hand.
Maybe all the lobbyists are the same people who lost their jobs as ballot counters ;-)
Re:A shame (Score:3, Interesting)
The system was only piloted in a few areas during the last election and even those pilots were flawed.
You should read the report before making any comments about the accuracy of the count. If the Commission don't think it is accurate, how can you suggest it is ?
Without VVAT there is no known accuracy.
Re:A shame (Score:3, Informative)
The system was only piloted in a few areas during the last election and even those pilots were flawed.
It was piloted in my constituency.
You should read the report before making any comments about the accuracy of the count. If the Commission don't think it is accurate, how can you suggest it is ?
Are you just trolling? Why don't you RTFA. That's not what they said at all:
But manual counts/recounts are FUN (Score:2)
Although the NI Assembly elections are nearly more fun, throw in a good dose of sectarianism into the PR-STV system. Woohoo, get the popcorn!
(Sorry, to clarify, democracy seems to work best and is much, much, nicer than, oh, dictatorships, Soviet Russia, etc. But Irish democracy is, well, a bunch of chancers combined with a bunch of ineffectual wellwishers.)
Boy have I used up my cynicism quota f
Woohoo! Yes! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is great, I wrote a couple of articles in the newspapers about it myself here... Thank god is all I can say. I have nothing against modernisation of voting systems, but there has to be some kind of accountability, and the government was going ahead without either a paper trail or a poll...
Hopefully we'll see a little more open source code too...
Paper trail (Score:3, Informative)
As an Irish person myself, I should have found out for sure what the situation was! Can someone confirm or deny this?
All I know for sure is that they weren't considering Diebold. The system was called Nedap or something.
Either way though, I'm against any electronic voting.
Re:Paper trail (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong! How can you be so badly misinformed ?
Check out the ICTE [cs.may.ie] for all you need to know.
Re:Paper trail (Score:3, Informative)
I was just about to correct my earlier post by posting a link to this document [labour.ie] from the Irish Labour party.
Sorry everyone! Mod grandparent down.
Re:Paper trail (Score:1)
Honestly, with a paper trail I would not have too many problems with e voting.
BUT, I want to give the code to some hard ass independent formal methods/Z/VDM/all-that-scary-stuff boys and girls before I am happy using it.
There are plenty of good guys around in Irish Universities.
Re:Paper trail (Score:2)
Nedap [nedap.nl] is a Dutch company, that provides voting machines [nedapspecials.com] for the Dutch elections as well. By the way, these do not provide a paper trail, at least not the version used in the Netherlands.
Electronic voting has recently come under attack in the Netherlands as well. A number of parties say there is not enough accountability and auditing possible with this system. Funny how it's the left-wing parties questioning e-voting; you'd think they were the ones with a lot
Re:Paper trail (Score:5, Informative)
First off, The system was called Nedap/Powervote, Nedap [nedap.nl] is a company based in the Netherlands.
Secondly, there was not going to be any paper trail, and this was one of the main reasons for objections. Most of the objectors agreed in principle with the concept of electronic voting, but not the Nedap implementation.
There are obstacles to having a paper trail due to the quirks of our system of voting, which I'll try to explain.
In Ireland, we use a particular method of proportional representation (PR) known as Proportional Representation through the Single Transferable Vote [wikipedia.org] (PR-STV), and we use this in a multi-candidate election.
What this means is that the voter marks his preference 1,2,3 etc, and more than one candidate can be elected per voting area.
A quota of votes establishes how many votes a candidate requires to be elected.
When a candidate is elected, the excess (no. of votes over the quota) is transferred to other candidates in another round of voting, according to the next preferences indicated on the ballot.
Now in Ireland, we do this by taking a random sample of those votes, and distributing those next preferences proportionally. This causes a problem with using a paper trail, as you cannot guarantee that the random sample you pick in your manual count is the same random sample chosen by the computer.
This also means that your vote may not actually be counted as such - you second preference may only be counted in the statistical sense.
Ideally, you would count each vote in each round of voting - however, with Irish elections often going to 7/8 rounds of voting, it was considered too time consuming to do this in general elections. It's a close enough compromise, and means we can usually get the results within 24 hours or so.
E-voting offered an opportunity to change this, and to count each and every transfer. However, the government screwed up, and ruled this out, effectively ruling out an independent paper trail.
Incidentally, €40 million was spent so far by the Irish government, and this is the best they could come up with.
Is there any reason you are against e-voting in principle? Given that you admit to not being aware of the situation, I'm guessing this is not a considered viewpoint, one which you should consider.
Re:Paper trail (Score:2)
Note that you shouldn't be able to identify the order in which votes were cast, so each vote should have a unique random serial on it - making the manual sort even more time consuming.
I agree with you though, it can be done. The main point however is that e-voting offers an opportunity to eliminate this randomness by counting all the next preference votes and distributing them fractionally. That for me is the main advantage which e-voting offer
Re:Paper trail (Score:2)
I take your point about the serial number though. Once you can verify that the numbers of each permutation match up, there isn't a need to uniquely identify any ballot.
Give me a break (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at least we've got the "free porn on the Internet" technology all worked out.
Re:Give me a break (Score:2)
Alternate System (Score:2, Funny)
The candidates have a soccer game.
The side with the most fans left standing wins.
Re:Alternate System (Score:2, Funny)
With chainsaws.
Would sort out the men from the boys.
Re:Alternate System (Score:2)
I can't be the only one wondering... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I can't be the only one wondering... (Score:1, Informative)
It's more of an interior ministry than an environment (in the sense of "green" issues) ministry.
Conflict of Interest (Score:2, Informative)
Because he is in charge of election campaigns for the governing party [fiannafail.ie].
That's not strictly the correct answer but it is shockingly true [politics.ie].
Re:I can't be the only one wondering... (Score:2)
The full title of his department is "The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government."
Surely not (Score:1, Funny)
Victory!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Dear ould Martin, however, got a lackey to email me a ref number. That was the last I heard.
Serves him right!! This is a good thing for e-voting. Maybe they will address the concerns and implement a safe,secure system (that allows us to spoil our votes).
Pablo El Vagabyundo
Solution in search of a problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
I still assert that for the most part e-voting is a solution in search of a problem.
While there were serious discrepancies in Florida in the US 2000 Presidential Election[1], the solution to that problem is to go to a fundamentally simpler system, not one wrought with complexity.
1: Do not think for one minute they were partisan - I think it was just luck of the draw that Gore lost - and had the results been the opposite, we would have heard precisely the same level of whining from the Republican camp that we heard from the Democrats.
Scantron sheets best solution so far. (Score:2)
Such a ballot has the advantages of 1) a full paper trail of the ballot and 2) the ability to easily do both machine and hand counts on a stack of ballots. That way, we don't have to worry about "hanging chads" or "dimpleed chads," the big issues with punch card ballots.
E-voting (Score:5, Informative)
Proof of presence and intention (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Proof of presence and intention (Score:2)
The 'e' component refers to 'electronic', not 'exposed to the internet', or 'easily connected to through use of TCP/IP', not even 'evidently we do not know what e stands for, but we like to think it stands for Internet'.
Just like e-mail is electronic mail.
It's an easy mistake to make, tellingly though it was a mistake also made by the Minister responsible.
He stated that he did not consider the system to be 'e-voting' as it was not connected to the internet, and suggested people were callin
E-voting (Score:3, Funny)
Quick background (Score:4, Interesting)
The system proposed for use in Ireland and dismissed by the Commission's report today is the Nedap/Powervote system, variants of which are used in the Netherlands and parts of Germany. It's a kiosk-based DRE system which uses glorified memory sticks to store ballot records. It was developed in apparent ignorance of the voter-verification requirement [notablesoftware.com].
Because the developers used the waterfall method, and didn't find out about the audit requirement until customer acceptance testing, they baulked at the idea of going back to the drawing board, and instead bolted on a useless printout-of-ballot-module-contents facility, and called it an audit trail.
Their salesmen are very good, and the Irish Government agreed to buy the system (total cost over 40 million euros) at the height of the Florida debacle in late 2000. Since then there have been reports, objections, and all manner of outcry from IT professionals in Ireland. Even the entire Opposition (elected politicians not belonging to the ruling coalition) opposed the system. The Government maintained a constant mantra: the system is accurate, the system is thoroughly tested, you're all a bunch of Luddites for thinking differently. Eventually the Irish Computer Society joined in [www.ics.ie], and the Minister promptly accused them [www.iol.ie] of being a front for the anti-globalisation movement.
The writing then being on the wall, the Government then appointed an independent Commission to examine the system and its testing, hoping for a graceful way out of the political corner. The Commission's report, however, is rather more damning than they hoped. In my personal opinion, this has more than a little to do with the fact that noted software expert David Parnas assisted the Commission, and he's a good deal more methodical and careful than Nedap/Powervote seem to have been.
--Adrian.
testing specs from www.electronicvoting.ie (Score:2, Informative)
seems there are 2 levels of testing
1- does the 'box' on the day record all data correctly ?
2- does the software that later analyses that data and declares the winners work correctly ?
seems they focused mostly on the later
interesting bits...
"Given the developer's postponement of implementing referential integrity in the database....."
"..uses Access97.." _nuff said_
I may actually vote now
How To Respond With An Irish Accent (Score:3, Funny)
(for North Americans) Repeat the following words, quickly slurring them together:
whale oil beef hooked
India (Score:2)
suspicious when Bush won Irish elections (Score:2)
Alternative System (Score:2, Informative)
Basically the government here is that new kind of "low taxes and more public services!!" type scam that constantly gets re-elected. Electronic voting was brought in, just to save money. No other reason.
Unfortunatly due to a COMPLETE lack of tech savvy the system will likly be a botch up. I
Why is it so hard? (Score:2)
The way I see it, the machines could easily be set up like this:
- All the machines are on some secure network with extremely limited outside access. This is really the hardest part of the whole arrangement. But with encryption and a physically secure central management system this can surely be made secure enough. Security technology is good enough to do just about anything else online.
- The voting machine
Re:Great for Ireland... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Great for Ireland... (Score:1)
Depends on what 'vote' you're talking about, popular or electoral.
While it's true no American president was ever elected with a minority of the electoral vote, there have been several, including George W. Bush, who have won the election without winning the popular vote.
Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
[BZZT!]
"I'm sorry, thank you for playing, next contestant please..."
John Quincy Adams, 1824 [archives.gov]. Andrew Jackson had both a higher popular vote and electoral college vote, but neither had a majority. Under constitutional provisions, the top three candidates were voted on by the house; the fourth threw his support behind Adams, giving him enough for a victory. (Additional reference source) [multied.com]
The 1876 Hayes/Tilden
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
That is the way the Constitution works (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:That is the way the Constitution works (Score:2)
Even without an electoral college system it's possible: in Britain during the 1979-1997 Conservative administration there was at least one election (1992?) in which the Conservatives won with a minority of the votes, but a majority of constituencies.
I'm in favour of some (don't know which) form of proportional representation for this very reason.
Re:That is the way the Constitution works (Score:2)
[...because] of the Electoral College system.
The electoral college is the well-meant Constitutional equivalent of "No state left behind". Unfortunately, it amplifies the consequences of larger-scale election fraud that (we're told) eVoting threatens to enable.
Re:That is the way the Constitution works (Score:2, Informative)
The Electoral College was meant to make sure that the President was elected by the States, as opposed to by the People. Quite deliberately, I might add. Remember that "United States" was a plural back then, and did not become singular till 1865.
It also served the useful purpose of convincing the smaller states to ratify the Constitution, without which this would all be moot. Smaller states had a quite reasonabl
Re:That is the way the Constitution works (Score:2, Informative)
Presidents who didn't get a majority of the popular vote:
George W Bush (2000) {debatable, depending on your beliefs about the diverse recounts, including the ones that didn't make the news)
William J Clinton (1996)
William J Clinton (1992)
Gerald Ford (unelected) (our only president who was never elected to either presidency or vice-presidency)
Richard M N
Re:That is the way the Constitution works (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Good news (Score:1)
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Funny)
Now, for your penance, go and get drunk on Guinness and sing something abusive about the English.
Excuse me dear fellow... (Score:3, Funny)
Níl Éire laistigh den Ríocht Aontaithe faoi láthair, ach amháin an Thuaisceart.
ÉIRE GO DEO!!!
Ahem, yes, Ireland is indeed no longer part of the UK, apart from Northern Ireland of course, which remained a part of the UK after 1922. I'm guessing you're one of those few from the US who not only has eloquence problems, but also deficiencies in geographical and politica
No holes in paper here (Score:2)