[LINK] New proposal for e-voting - Turnbull

[Jan Whitaker]

At 06:05 PM 10/09/2013, Richard wrote:
>My take, with a correction:
>
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/10/turnbull_floats_evote_compulsory_id/
>
>I was given the context lecture by a Turnbull staffer, which is typical
>spinner behaviour. God knows what rope political staffers have around
>gallery journalists' necks, that they will fall for it.

At least unlike the US, they can't disenfranchise huge numbers of 
people or else they (the politicians proposing policies that would do 
so) would be in bigger trouble with the electorate. If anyone is 
following the crazy in the US, some states are instituting photo ID 
based of false information stating that voter fraud is high. Just as 
the noise in the Australian system leads to some fuzziness, there 
isn't enough to support that position.

Do people vote who shouldn't? I know of two people who aren't 
Australian citizens who do. Should I report them? I don't know. They 
are Kiwi and British. Did they once have voting privileges? I don't 
know. Do they still? I don't know. But if citizenship is required, 
I'd bet you there are LOTS of liberal voters who shouldn't be voting. 
I wonder how he would feel about that impact?

I heard Diak talking about how they manage the paper voting papers. I 
couldn't believe what I was hearing, but when I thought about it, I 
guess it's the only way it could be done: they hand key in all those 
numbers from the paper ballots into their system. Each and every one 
of those 90+ numbers on each and every sheet is open to human error. 
If there could be a way to replicate the paper ballots with the 
ability for voters to still vote informally and anonymously, maybe it 
would be a good thing.

But there would definitely need to be an independent QA checker of 
the machines, and I doubt very much if Diebold would allow access to 
their code at that level.

Here's hoping no linkers are threatened by the Sydney fires. :-(
Jan


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how 
do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.
~Margaret Atwood, writer

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