[LINK] Electronic witnessing [was: High Court case Re: Register Online to Vote Should be LLegal]

Kim Holburn kim at holburn.net
Fri Jul 30 14:34:41 AEST 2010


On 2010/Jul/30, at 1:54 PM, Michael Skeggs mike at bystander.net wrote:

> On 30 July 2010 12:26, Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
> SNIP
>>
>> OK, so that'd deal with Australian 4chan members but what about the
>> rest of the world then?
>>
>> Putting this in an international setting: say there was a country  
>> with
>> a lot of on-line resources and a vested interest in the outcome of an
>> Australian election....
>>
>
> I'm not sure of a mechanism where a foreign power filling out
> electronic vote roll enrollment forms would influence the electoral
> outcome. A DOS attack preventing genuine online enrollments getting
> through? I suppose that would be a bit disruptive, but the potentially
> disenfranchised could go the paper route as is available now as the
> only option. As it stands, if I know the name and address of an
> enrolled voter, and I am motivated, I can probably cast 7 or 8 votes
> in their name (assuming visiting multiple polling booths early).
> A foreign power could do the same, I guess, with or without
> e-enrollment, if they were sufficiently resourced and motivated.
> I agree there are myriad problems with online *voting*, but I'm not
> clear on why online enrollment would be an issue.

For a start, chaos.  If, for instance,  someone had taken the  
electoral commission to court to enforce on-line registration they  
might not be able to take the chaos off-line.

If another country had a number of "people" in Australia they might be  
able to use it to cast many votes as well. I can't image anyone  
bothering to do this but who knows?  We know that almost any of the  
voting systems we use is very bad when voting is close.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627581.400-electoral-dysfunction-why-democracy-is-always-unfair.html




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Kim Holburn
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