Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Estonian vote-counting system fails
I was impressed by the Estonian presentation at the Internet Voting dialogue (event page: Internet Voting – What Can Canada Learn?). Estonia has done a good job of thinking seriously about the technical issues.
But not good enough apparently, since their Internet vote-counting system failed during the election period.
Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) - Elections Agency Fines E-Voting Company - March 7, 2011
via @VerifiedVoting
In Estonian, with video: Valimiskomisjon nõuab Helmeselt kahjude hüvitamist.
There's a bit more information in another ERR story
ERR - Electoral Committee Chief Apologizes for Website Collapse - March 7, 2011
There were also browser errors, which is a reminder that an Internet election is orders of magnitudes more complicated than a paper-based one. There are many different operating systems, web browsers, mobile devices... can you guarantee that your voting system will support all of them correctly? Or are you simply going to exclude people who have a particular set of technology?
ERR - Electoral Committee Chief Apologizes for Website Collapse - March 7, 2011
Although the election itself was March 6, 2011, voters could cast ballots in advance, including over the Internet. However, this option is not how the majority of votes are cast.
ERR - Estonians Head to the Ballot Box - March 6, 2011
In all, the turnout was 63%.
So you have a choice: either our paper-based system, in which results are rapidly counted and posted, as they have been decade after decade, a system that isn't broken, or a future Canadian elections official apologising when some or all of our elections system doesn't work, because of computer systems failures. If you think that Canada might somehow be exempt from these kinds of failures, keep in mind it already happened in Quebec: Report on Quebec's municipal electronic voting disaster.
But not good enough apparently, since their Internet vote-counting system failed during the election period.
After the internet ballot-counting system temporarily crashed on Election Day evening, the National Electoral Committee said it will demand compensation from Helmes, the company responsible for the country's vote-counting software.
...
"The database did not perform queries with the prescribed speed [...] Reliability had thoroughly been tested and it worked flawlessly," said company spokesperson Evelin Lang.
Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) - Elections Agency Fines E-Voting Company - March 7, 2011
via @VerifiedVoting
In Estonian, with video: Valimiskomisjon nõuab Helmeselt kahjude hüvitamist.
There's a bit more information in another ERR story
Estonia's much-talked-about e-innovation fell under doubt by its advocates last night, when, after preliminary results came in at 20:00, a website breakdown impeded election results from arriving for more than 1.5 hours in the most critical time.
An unprecedented software error with the web system was a blow to the trustworthyness of the elections, said National Electoral Committee Chairman Heiki Sibul. "That fact that we have a problem with something as simple as displaying the website - that is not acceptable," said Sibul on ETV, asserting nevertheless that there is no reason to doubt the results.
ERR - Electoral Committee Chief Apologizes for Website Collapse - March 7, 2011
There were also browser errors, which is a reminder that an Internet election is orders of magnitudes more complicated than a paper-based one. There are many different operating systems, web browsers, mobile devices... can you guarantee that your voting system will support all of them correctly? Or are you simply going to exclude people who have a particular set of technology?
Further hinting to the technology's imperfections, another type of error, a browser malfunction, emerged while e-voting was still in progress, due to which voters in three known instances could not view several listed candidates. The voters were, nevertheless, able to cast their votes.
ERR - Electoral Committee Chief Apologizes for Website Collapse - March 7, 2011
Although the election itself was March 6, 2011, voters could cast ballots in advance, including over the Internet. However, this option is not how the majority of votes are cast.
For a large portion of Estonians, election day is already past. More than 27 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in an early voting period, most of them via the nation's internet voting system which the tech-savvy nation first pioneered in 2005.
ERR - Estonians Head to the Ballot Box - March 6, 2011
In all, the turnout was 63%.
So you have a choice: either our paper-based system, in which results are rapidly counted and posted, as they have been decade after decade, a system that isn't broken, or a future Canadian elections official apologising when some or all of our elections system doesn't work, because of computer systems failures. If you think that Canada might somehow be exempt from these kinds of failures, keep in mind it already happened in Quebec: Report on Quebec's municipal electronic voting disaster.
Labels: Estonia, fail, internet voting
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Arnprior voting extended by 24 hours due to technical issues
Many, many stories about this yesterday and today. Not just Arnprior was affected, but it's the only one that took the extraordinary step of extending voting by 24 hours. Other municipalities extended voting by an hour.
This is a serious voting system failure. I think "glitch" is a bit of an understatement. First you hand your voting system over to a private company, and then it doesn't work? That's a surrender followed by a failure, not a glitch.
Incidentally "we are just too popular a service" is not an explanation, it's an excuse.
If your system doesn't work, that is a technology planning failure. If the obvious visible parts of the system don't work, how much should we trust the parts of the system that we can't see?
It's interesting to compare this result with the glowing pre-election news stories about how wonderful this would all be.
Kemptville EMC News - North Grenville begins electronic voting Oct. 18 - October 14, 2010
Apparently it is not voting-day Internet-traffic-proof, sadly.
Incidentally, there is no difference between high real traffic and a denial of service attack - presumably a botnet could just as easily have shut this site out.
There's so much to mock about the tone and unseriousness of this article - it totally misses the point about Internet voting. The issue is not whether it's easy to click a website button or the server room is hurricane-proof. The issue is whether YOUR VOTE IS SECURE, ANONYMOUS AND CORRECTLY COUNTED. None of which the system can guarantee.
More pre-election fluff:
Arnprior EMC News - Town staff provide overview of electronic voting process Voting in municipal election runs from Oct. 18-25 - October 14, 2010
So first you pay the private company to use their Internet voting system (which turns out I guess to be a shared voting system), and then you pay to promote it to your citizens?
Plus which, define secure. Secure as in, it uses SSL? Secure as in you have a consultant report that says it's secure? Or secure as in you paid for a penetration test by computer security experts and they failed to compromise the system AND they failed to compromise the desktop endpoints that users voted? And you also paid business continuity experts to ensure it held up under denial of service AND network connection failure AND under high load?
People standing in a room counting paper is a highly resilient, low points of failure system.
Computer desktops + the entire Internet + server room(s) + the entire power grid + many many other technology elements is a many points of failure system.
This is a serious voting system failure. I think "glitch" is a bit of an understatement. First you hand your voting system over to a private company, and then it doesn't work? That's a surrender followed by a failure, not a glitch.
Incidentally "we are just too popular a service" is not an explanation, it's an excuse.
If your system doesn't work, that is a technology planning failure. If the obvious visible parts of the system don't work, how much should we trust the parts of the system that we can't see?
- CTV Ottawa - Electronic voting creates problems across eastern Ont. - Updated: Tue Oct. 26 2010 5:14:43 PM
- CBC News - Technical glitch extends Arnprior vote 1 day - Last Updated: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 | 12:05 AM ET
- Arnprior EMC News - Intelivote explains voting problems in Arnprior - Oct 26, 2010
- Ottawa Citizen - Overloaded e-vote system means Arnprior voters get another day to cast ballots - October 26, 2010 - also republished in the Vancouver Sun
- 580 CFRA News - Election Extended in Arnprior - by Josh Pringle - October 26, 2010
It's interesting to compare this result with the glowing pre-election news stories about how wonderful this would all be.
Kemptville EMC News - North Grenville begins electronic voting Oct. 18 - October 14, 2010
According to director of corporate services/clerk Cahl Pominville, residents shouldn't be afraid of the process, noting that if "you can order from Sears over the phone, you can use electronic voting." ...
"It's not a big scary monster," he says of electronic voting, which will be handled by Intelivote Systems Inc. in eastern Canada. "It's been done by thousands and thousands of people in eastern Ontario in previous elections."
...
Pominville stressed that residents using the Internet voting method needn't be concerned about the security issues of the website they are being asked to visit.
"Residents will be connecting to a website in a very large, secure room in Nova Scotia," he explained. "It's a disaster-proof building that houses this kind of stuff."
Apparently it is not voting-day Internet-traffic-proof, sadly.
Incidentally, there is no difference between high real traffic and a denial of service attack - presumably a botnet could just as easily have shut this site out.
There's so much to mock about the tone and unseriousness of this article - it totally misses the point about Internet voting. The issue is not whether it's easy to click a website button or the server room is hurricane-proof. The issue is whether YOUR VOTE IS SECURE, ANONYMOUS AND CORRECTLY COUNTED. None of which the system can guarantee.
More pre-election fluff:
Arnprior EMC News - Town staff provide overview of electronic voting process Voting in municipal election runs from Oct. 18-25 - October 14, 2010
(Town clerk Jacquie Farrow-Lawrence), along with deputy-clerk Maureen Spratt, provided a demonstration of how the electronic voting system, provided by Intelivote System Inc., would work. She then explained the extensive publicity campaign that has gone into preparing the electorate for the new system.
...
"It is a secure process," Spratt explained as she proceeded to demonstrate voting by computer.
So first you pay the private company to use their Internet voting system (which turns out I guess to be a shared voting system), and then you pay to promote it to your citizens?
Plus which, define secure. Secure as in, it uses SSL? Secure as in you have a consultant report that says it's secure? Or secure as in you paid for a penetration test by computer security experts and they failed to compromise the system AND they failed to compromise the desktop endpoints that users voted? And you also paid business continuity experts to ensure it held up under denial of service AND network connection failure AND under high load?
People standing in a room counting paper is a highly resilient, low points of failure system.
Computer desktops + the entire Internet + server room(s) + the entire power grid + many many other technology elements is a many points of failure system.
Labels: fail, internet voting, ontario, telephone voting
