[LINK] AEC to release secret voting source code

Stephen Loosley stephenloosley at outlook.com
Fri Jul 11 13:43:10 AEST 2014




> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 11:59:45 +1000
> From: jeremy at visser.name
> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au

While you're here Jeremy ... thanks for supporting Tassie programmer-turned-lawyer Michael Cordover in his FOI request for the source code of AEC software, developed in-house, for conducting Senate counts.

At http://easycount.mjec.net Mr Cordover writes, "I'm a lawyer and nerd from Hobart, Tasmania. The AEC is responsible for counting Senate votes at each election. Given the complexity of the count, this is done using a computer, in accordance with the Electoral Act. This software was developed in-house at the AEC. Aware of that, and given the broad definition of document in the Freedom of Information Act, I put in a FOI request for the source code of the software used to conduct Senate counts.  (End quote)

Although the AEC refused, the Senate has quite correctly agreed, and forced the code release.

Article By Mahesh Sharma  (SMH)  July 10, 2014 - 8:23PM ...

The Senate has forced the Australian Electoral Commission to disclose the source code of the software that counts Senate preference votes after the organisation refused to release it in response to a freedom-of-information request.

The upper house on Thursday passed a motion by Greens senator Lee Rhiannon demanding that the Special Minister of State table the source code for the EasyCount application.

After the commission declined Tasmanian programmer-turned-lawyer Michael Cordover's FOI application he sent two further emails including another FOI request. It prompted the commission's chief legal officer, Paul Pirani, to accuse Mr Cordover of being a vexatious applicant who had colluded with another activist to harass the organisation.

Mr Cordover, who filed the FOI soon after last year's election, welcomed the motion but was sceptical of whether the commission would disclose the source code.

"The government has a tradition of not complying with orders of production of documents and I can see them waiving it on a range of grounds," Mr Cordover said. "If they do comply it renders my campaign moot, and I consider that an absolute success."

Mr Cordover said he was prompted to file the FOI after the 2013 West Australian Senate election because of a controversy a decade ago in America, where it was found that Diebold, the company that manufactures electronic voting machines, had strong ties to the Republican Party. People demanded the company release the machines' source code, in order to confirm that there was no bugs – or bias – that skewed votes.

Senator Rhiannon said after the bungled counting of last year's election, which forced a re-run of the West Australian poll and led to the resignation of commission head Ed Killesteyn, the refusal to disclose the source code had further damaged the organisation's reputation.

“There is no justification for the AEC refusing to release information on how the Senate vote is counted. It is widely known that it is very complex, so surely the methodology used should be publicly available," Senator Rhiannon said. “The AEC hardline position in trying to discredit Mr Cordover as a vexatious litigant is an abuse of the law under which the AEC operates and raises the very relevant question, what do they have to hide?"

The commission had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Mr Cordover has raised more than $6000 for an appeal against the commission's decision to reject his FOI application. He has pledged to pursue the matter until the source code is released, but committed to donate any unused funds to the Open Australia Foundation.

He said he did not suspect the commission had committed any wrongdoing, intentionally. But he said all software contained bugs and the only way to fix them was by inviting the public to scrutinise the source code. He said the risks were especially big given the complex methodology used to allocate Senate preference votes. Bugs had been found in an open-source system used in the ACT elections, he said, though this had not affected any results.

"The impact of those bugs could be quite varied. It could tell us that either the count was accurate and being done in the right way, or it wasn't," Mr Cordover said.

"I think it's important for democracy to see how votes are being counted. Secrecy is the antithesis of true democracy."

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/vexatious-digital-activist-forces-australian-electoral-commission-to-release-secret-computer-code-20140710-zt27i.html

Cheers,
Stephen


 		 	   		  


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