[LINK] Voted Electronically in the Australian Federal Election

[steve jenkin]

Richard Chirgwin wrote on 21/11/07 1:18 PM:
> Anyhow, Tom: there is a more direct measure. Are our elections *now*
> expensive or cheap per-capita? If they're expensive, are they more
> expensive than places already using machines? Is the cost justified
> given other considerations (transparency, participation, distance
> covered for very small electorates, etc)? The "cost of elections" is
> not a simple continuum between two points, with pencil and paper at
> one end and computers at the other ... it's more complex than that.
>
> RC
Good questions.

The "figure of merit" for elections/voting machines may not be price.
- 'hanging chads' taught us that repeatable recounts are important.
- hackable software showed us we need auditable, verifiable results are
most important.
- In "supervised" elections the stuffing or stealing of vote boxes is an
eye-opener
- At least we get to have elections (vs Pakistan) and don't get killed
for voting (East Timor)

As a CBR voter, I am nonplused by the *wait* for a result here after our
local elections (modified Hare-Clarke with Robson rotation, IIRC)
The local Returning Officer has done well getting the vote counting done
by a computer system.
- Vote counting & results printing: minutes
- Data input & verification: 2 weeks!! [IIRC]

Moving to some sort of electronic vote capture would give us the full
House of Reps *and* Senate results by 9pm.
Might take the fun out of it for some folk :-)
Definitely put the "election night pundits" out of work.

-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin