[LINK] AEC on E-Voting

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Australian Electoral Commission Says E-Voting Is Coming, But It's Hard

By LUKE HOPEWELL TODAY 9:30 AM
<http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/11/australian-electoral-commission-says-e-
voting-is-coming-but-its-hard-right-now/>


The Australian Electoral Commission is having a bad few weeks. After being 
forced to recount the votes for Western Australian Senate seats, the AEC 
declared it had lost around 1400 ballot papers, opening up a Pandora’s Box 
of problems including potential by-elections, recount demands and court 
cases. 

It’s easy enough to say that this could all be solved with computers and 
fancy e-voting, but the Electoral Commissioner isn’t so sure.

Speaking to ABC Radio this morning, Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn 
said that it’s likely Australians will experience some sort of e-voting 
platform in future, but the road to digital democracy is a tough one.

“There is a trend or certainly a good debate that is needed about 
electronic voting, and i think it is inevitable that there will be some e-
voting in the future,” Killesteyn said, adding that throwing some internet 
at the problem isn’t an instant fix.

“We have to be careful that we suggest that there’s an easy solution to 
[eliminating error]. If I was to provide the same voting facilities for all 
14.7m voters [via electronic means], I would need 120,000 e-voting machines 
deployed across the country, and I would have 33 days to do it because the 
[election] date is not known. The notion that there is a simple solution 
through e-voting needs to be considered,” he added.

The Commissioner and the AEC outed a discussion paper last year to get the 
conversation around e-voting started ..

<http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamen
tary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/EVoting>

Cheers,
Stephen


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