[LINK] electronic voting is coming

[David Goldstein]

Kim said "Computers have so many avenues to allow invisible scamming of the system.  So much work to make them safe to use for voting."

Funny, I thought there were plenty of examples of elections around the world where elections using paper ballots were rigged.

I would have thought both methods have their limitations. Even in Australia there are people who turn up to vote for other people.

David



----- Original Message ----
From: Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net>
To: Link List <link at anu.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, 20 March, 2009 8:31:49 PM
Subject: Re: [LINK] electronic voting is coming

There are so many problems with electronic voting.  Haven't we  
discussed this all before?

The biggest question of all is why do it?  What is the problem you are  
trying to solve?   The Economist article talks about paper ballots  
with some clever trickery.  If you're going to use paper ballots  
what's wrong with the old kind?  Why change?

Computers have so many avenues to allow invisible scamming of the  
system.  So much work to make them safe to use for voting.

If you're going to move to all electronic systems then you need to  
have cryptographic systems in place to allow proper audit trails.  It  
can be done electronically but it's not simple.  Simple is to have the  
machines print a ballot which is checked by the voter and have a  
verified paper trail, but then again, why use computers?  What's wrong  
with the current paper system?

If you're going to do without the paper trail then you have to use  
complex cryptographic systems and you have to be able to prove every  
part of all of the systems.  All the code of the voting machines would  
have to be open and viewable by the public.  Not just voting machines  
but all computers involved in the tallying process.  (Hmmmmm....)

In Holland touch screen systems are illegal because they radiate  
signals that can be read by people some distance away who could render  
a vote non-secret.

In the US it's all starting to unravel.  How would you solve what  
these guys in Kentucky did with their voting computers?  Use paper  
ballots, they are simply not subject to the same scams:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7001

> KY Circuit court judge, county clerk and election officials among  
> eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006


I seem to recall the ACT has had some electronic voting for a number  
of years.

Voting is the only time, the moment, in our oligarchical system where  
we actually get to take part, to be part of our democracy.  So it's  
critical we protect it.  Computers can so easily be corrupted.  That  
said, the thing I do see is that a trusted electronic voting system  
might allow us to vote more often. To be able to do it more often  
would make our system more democratic.  Would this be a good idea?  I  
don't know.  Wisdom of crowds or madness of mobs?


Kim

On 2009/Mar/18, at 7:40 PM, David Goldstein wrote:

>
> The Economist has an interesting story on a number of initiatives  
> around the world to deal with security issues in variations of  
> electronic voting.
>
> A really secret ballot
> A variety of schemes to encrypt ballot papers should reassure voters  
> and help to make elections more secure
> http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12673211
>
> David
>
>
>
>      Stay connected to the people that matter most with a smarter  
> inbox. Take a look http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/smarterinbox
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-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
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