Paper Vote Canada

as midterm [US] elections approach this November [2006], electronic voting machines are making things worse instead of better. Studies have demonstrated that hackers can easily rig the technology to fix an election - and across the country this year, faulty equipment and lax security have repeatedly undermined election primaries.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 2:51 pm (0) comments /

In a new report on problems with Quebec's 2005 municipal election, chief electoral officer Marcel Blanchet targets the electronic voting system used to collect and count the votes.

The election was an expensive disaster marked by errors, which produced inaccurate numbers and unreliable results, the report said. And the new electronic system is to blame, it adds.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:06 am (0) comments /

After the 2000 US presidential election and its scads of hanging chads, election officials across the country began casting about for solutions. One proposal included getting rid of those pesky paper ballots altogether and going with electronic voting machines. It sounds good in theory, but as a friend of mine once said, "do that and we'll find out who hackers want to be president."

A group of computer science professors are joining the forces critical of electronic voting machines as they are currently deployed. Eugene H. Spafford, a computer science professor at Purdue University and chairman of the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery has expressed his concerns over the security of electronic voting machines used in the US. "As experts in computing, we have grave reservations about the safeguards in place with many of the computerized voting technologies being used," said Spafford in a letter to Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), chairman of the Committee on House Administration.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 11:31 am (0) comments /

EVT seeks to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines, ranging from computer science and human factors experts through political scientists, legal experts, election administrators, and voting equipment vendors. The workshop will include short paper presentations as well as vibrant panel discussions with substantial time devoted to questions and answers. Attendance at the workshop will be open to the public, although speakers and presentations will be by invitation only.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 3:38 pm (0) comments /

Electronic compilation of results

The electronic compilation devices used by Bell Business Solutions ensure efficiency, thoroughness and integrity throughout the voting process, whether for a municipal or school board election, referendum or any other consultation.

Simplified functions

* Simple and quick voting process
* Objective counting of ballots (with no human involvement)
* Major reduction of electoral staff
* Fewer duties for electoral staff
* Fast disclosure of results

Accu-Vote ES electronic ballot box

The Accu-Vote ES system uses an optical reader to record votes on a memory card as ballots are being cast. It considerably simplifies the electoral process for everyone involved and guarantees that the final results will remain secret until the polls close.

In Québec, since 1995, more than 120 cities and municipalities have successfully used vote counting devices. More than 4 million ballots have been recorded by voters during these elections.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 6:39 pm (1) comments /

Mass-scale systems intended to deliver e-Government in a democratic context pose a range of under-explored design problems. In particular, we are far from having identified a core set of requirements for such systems. The need for confidentiality, privacy, transparency, accountability and user control are all critical to the success of such systems yet we are still far from determining how to implement such requirements and how the design of such systems will affect user behaviour. In this workshop we aim to address these very broad issues in general together with a more focused examination of e-voting as an exemplar of e-government systems.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 5:54 pm (0) comments /

When asked about these issues, Church points out that their systems have been thoroughly tested and that mock elections, held by municipal officials prior to the actual election, have proven to be 100 percent reliable. Aside from these, Church also points out that the convenience and increased voter turnout overcome the security concerns that some people may have.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 5:24 pm (2) comments /

HAD it not been for the almost accidental discovery of an anomalous piece of software, Venezuela's parliamentary election might have passed off on December 4th in relative normality. True, fewer than 30% of the electorate might have voted, and there would have been the usual cries of fraud. The opposition has grown hoarse over the past couple of years alleging malpractice by the electoral council (CNE), which is supposed to be independent but is dominated by supporters of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's leftist president. Nevertheless, all but the radical fringe and the no-hopers were planning to take part, albeit under protest.

Less than a week before the poll, six parties, representing nearly half the opposition candidates, pulled out. ...

The pull-out was prompted by a routine audit of electronic voting machines, watched by international observers. An opposition technician discovered a file that allowed the voting machine to store the sequence of votes cast. Polling stations were also to have electronic finger-print machines, so each vote could, in theory at least, be matched to an individual. That the ballot might not be secret matters in a country in which the government has used voting data to deny jobs and government services to opposition supporters.

The CNE suspended the audit. The opposition parties held an urgent meeting with observers from the Organisation of American States (OAS). According to a diplomatic source, the head of the OAS delegation told José Vicente Rangel, Venezuela's vice-president, that the opposition would pull out unless the finger-print machines were withdrawn. On November 28th, Jorge Rodríguez, the CNE's president, said this would happen.

But the message from the opposition's activists was overwhelming: their voters would not turn out for an election organised by the current electoral authority. So the opposition leaders called for the election's postponement.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:23 am (0) comments /

On behalf of voter rights advocate Joyce McCloy, the EFF has filed a complaint against several government agencies in North Carolina, requesting that the Superior Court nullify the certification of proprietary electronic voting systems that failed to meet the state's selection critera.

North Carolina established strict new voting machine requirements after system failure led to the loss of 4,000 votes in an election last year. The Public Confidence in Elections bill requires that all voting machine manufacturers disclose their proprietary source code for review by government technology experts. When Diebold was given an exemption last month, the EFF took the matter to court, where Diebold lost. The government of North Carolina proceeded to certify Diebold anyway, despite revocation of the exemption. Certification of technology that fails to meet the legal requirements established by the Public Confidence in Elections bill is essentially illegal, and the EFF wants the government to be held accountable for their disregard of a critical law.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:17 am (0) comments /

A North Carolina judge ruled that Diebold may not be protected from criminal prosecution if it fails to disclose the code behind its voting machines as required by law. In response, Diebold has threatened to pull out of North Carolina.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 8:25 pm (0) comments /

“To have to go to a polling station, it’s just not in sync with our fast-paced connected life,” she said.

Online voting would likely entice a lot more young people to exercise their democratic right, Stronach said.

“It’s something we need to explore. With the technology that’s available today there’s no reason we can’t do it.”

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:03 pm (0) comments /

Delays, equipment breakdowns and erroneous results marred the IT systems used to handle the recent municipal election of Montreal and several cities in Quebec.

The voting box IT infrastructure was supplied by PG Elections, an affiliate of PG Mensys, which has helped to run several elections since 1999. PG Elections deployed some 1,400 electronic ballot boxes and voting terminals in 604 sites, providing an electronic voting system in a majority of municipalities in the province of Québec (a number of others cities also voted electronically using systems deployed by another service provider). Some of the machines failed to count properly and a mayoral contender in Montréal called for a legal recount in several districts after noting a number of problems in the voting process.

A voting terminal is a completely electronic device that registers votes using a touchscreen display, but the systems that failed during these municipal elections across the province were electronic ballot boxes used to scan paper ballots, which are then digitized and compiled. Some 900 of those voting terminals were deployed, of which 450 were rented from an American supplier. Thomas Gagnon, president of PG Elections, refused to name the partner who supplied the electronic voting systems.

“Everything worked well in the testing, but when we deployed them in the field, there were a series of important problems: if someone voted too quickly, they broke down, but if you voted slowly enough they worked well,” said. “We had what you could call lemons.”

Poor Internet connections also induced delays in the transmission of the electoral results to the political parties and to the media, who had to resort to more manual methods by telephones. “That was a major irritant,” Gagnon admitted.

Gagnon said about 45,000 ballots were counted twice, but that they were corrected before the end results were announced.

PG Elections attributed the catastrophe to an excess of optimism and for providing a team of only 300 technicians to handle all of Quebec.

11/11/2005 - Au-delà de la compétence de la firme impliquée, PG Elections, les ratés informatiques des dernières élections municipales au Québec ont fourni la preuve que la loi de Murphy existe

Il y a peu de chances que Thomas Gagnon, président et chef de la direction de PG Mensys Systèmes d’Information, garde un bon souvenir du 6 novembre 2005, journée d’élections municipales généralisée pour la première fois à l’ensemble des villes du Québec, ou presque. Une journée qui devait selon toute probabilité se dérouler sans accrocs, du moins d’un point de vue informatique, l’infrastructure de vote électronique fournie par PG Elections, une filiale de PG Mensys, ayant été testée et utilisée à plusieurs reprises depuis 1999.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 12:04 am (0) comments /

Quebec city, February 23, 2005 - For twenty-five years, PG Mensys Information Systems has been developing innovative management systems aiming to serve municipalities all over Quebec. Constantly growing, PG Mensys Information Systems always goes forward, and still, remains close to its clients and in tune with their needs.

Mr. Thomas Gagnon, the President and CEO of PG Mensys Information Systems has just been honoured with the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner certification.

...

The PG Mensys Information Systems sales have reached $13 M in 2004, a 37% rise copared to 2003. The sales turnover, for the current year, was anticipated at $18 M, and that is a 39% rise compared to 2004 and almost 100% rise compared to 2003.

Let us recall that the year 2004 began with PG Information Systems acquiring Mensys, and therefore giving more competitiveness to PG Mensys Information Systems, for the medium and large city markets.

...

Elections

Another division of PG Mensys Information Systems, PG Elections, has been chosen by the Montreal and Longueuil transition committees to establish an electronic voting mechanism device for the upcoming 2005 general elections, for the nineteen municipalities being reconstituted. The mandate includes the preparation of electoral lists, computerized management of votes and electronic compilation of results. Let us recall that PG Elections detained more than 80% of the market share in 2004.

PG Elections

PG Elections est la compagnie qui a fournie l'urne électronique ainsi que les listes électorales.

PG Elections appartient à PG MENSYS SYSTÈMES D'INFORMATION INC. qui appartient à Thomas gagnon (actionnaire majoritaire), Fonds d'investissement Desjardins du Bas-St-Laurent (deuxième actionnaire) et Mario Brisson (troisième actionnaire). Thomas Gagnon est administrateur-président-secrétaire.

On apprend également que PG Election a déjà porté 3 autres noms:
1-Programmation Gagnon inc. (1985-2000)
2-PG systèmes d'information inc. (2000-2004)
3-PG MENSYS SYSTÈMES D'INFORMATION INC. (en vigueur)

Un scoop : Le PG de PG Elections voudrait donc dire Programmation Gagnon!

Quattra Design Inc.

Quattra Design est le propriétaire du site web de PG Elections, site web sur lequel les hyperliens internes menaient parfois (voir le premier billet de cette série).

Quatra Design Inc. appartient à PG Elections et Thomas Gagnon est administrateur-président-secrétaire.

PQM Inc.

PQM inc. est la compagnie qui détient le site web sur lequel les résultats du vote était présenté: http://www.resultatduvote.qc.ca/

PQM veut dire Production Québec Multimédia et est la propriété de Jacques Landry, mais est à la même adresse que les 3 autres compagnies, c'est-à-dire au 217, LÉONIDAS à Rimouski.

Thomas Gagnon

J'en conclue que toutes les compagnies que j'ai identifiées jusqu'à présent comme acteurs, sauf probablement PQM, appartiennent en majorité à 1 seul homme: Thomas Gagnon.

Après avoir débuté sa carrière en 1973 comme programmeur chez STS à Montréal, M. Gagnon a fondé en 1980 Programmation Gagnon, devenue aujourd'hui PG Mensys Systèmes d'Information. Cette entreprise se consacre à la conception et à l'intégration de solutions de gestion pour les secteurs municipal et forestier. Il en est aujourd'hui le président et le responsable du développement des affaires.

M. Gagnon dirige les activités reliées au développement des affaires et à l'expansion de l'entreprise : établissement d'alliances stratégiques, acquisitions et développement des marchés nationaux et internationaux.

M. Gagnon s'est vu nommer « Personnalité du mois d'août 2004 en TI au Québec » par la FIQ.

En plus d'avoir obtenu plusieurs prix dans le Bas-St-Laurent, dont le titre d'entreprise de l'année en 1991 et en 2000, PG Mensys s'est également illustrée sur la scène provinciale en étant lauréate d'un OCTAS en 2002 (affaires électroniques - intranets d'entreprises). Sur la scène canadienne, il s'est mérité la même année un prix CIPA (Canadian Information Productivity Awards) dans la catégorie «Petite entreprise».

Not less than 4 of 5 million Quebeckers called to vote in the November 6 [2005] municipal elections will be able to make their selection using an electronic method / technology, une technologie principalement dévelopée ... par la division PG Élections.

PG Elections dominates this market with nearly two thirds of the 179 municipalities using electronic voting, the biggest being Montreal and Quebec City. Two other firms, Bell Business Solutions and TM Technologies also have some clients.

...

« Je crois que Québec [City] sera la première grande ville en Amérique du Nord à procéder par un vote électronique, sans utilisation de papier » affirme Thomas Gagnon

We are pleased to announce the creation of PG Elections North America, a subsidiary of PG Mensys Information Systems.
PG Elections NA is entirely dedicated to outsourcing election services throughout North America, and is represented by Mr. Jonathon Hollins, Vice President, International Elections Services.

Here is a poorly translated list of key contacts at the parent company PGMensys:
PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL: Thomas Gagnon
HEAD OF THE DIRECTION: Thomas Gagnon
GENERAL President-director: Thomas Gagnon
FINANCES: Daniel Desaulniers
MARKETING: Sylvain Gauthier
SALES: Sylvain Gauthier
DEVELOPMENT OF THE BUSINESSES: Thomas Gagnon
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Thomas Gagnon
DATA PROCESSING DEPARTMENT: Jean-Guy Renaud
HUMAN RESOURCES: Mario Brisson
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: Jean-Guy Renaud

Québec, le 7 novembre 2005 - À la suite de la votation électronique qui a eu lieu hier dans plusieurs municipalités du Québec, dont Québec et Montréal, et bien que l'ensemble du système soit présentement sous analyse, PG Elections tient à apporter les précisions suivantes sur ce qui sest passé.

* Quelque cinq réseaux informatiques ont cessé de fonctionner mais ont été rétablis dans de courts délais;
* Tous les votes ont été reçus et compilés même si des terminaux de votation ont cessé de fonctionner à Québec;
* Certaines urnes électroniques se sont avérées défectueuses;
* Les problèmes informatiques ont causé des retards dans la transmission des résultats électoraux aux partis politiques et aux médias;
* Le personnel des élections étant temporaire et moins habitué il semble y avoir eu certains problèmes au niveau du soutien technique et dans l'utilisation des terminaux dans les bureaux de vote.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:49 am (0) comments /

Pierre Bourque, who was defeated in his bid to become mayor of Montreal again, wants a judge to cancel last Sunday's municipal vote and order a new election.

Bourque had initially called for a complete recount of the election won by incumbent Mayor Gérald Tremblay. But he now says there were too many problems with the voting process.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:05 am (0) comments /

La firme PG Élections était responsable des systèmes électroniques de votation de 83 municipalités québécoises, dont Montréal et Québec, dimanche dernier. Toutefois, la gestion du vote a tourné au fiasco: serveurs surchargés, résultats instables, retards dans le processus.

Mercredi, la firme est sortie de son mutisme et a avoué qu'elle avait sous-estimé l'ampleur de la tâche. Le PDG Thomas Gagnon a précisé que sa compagnie était mal préparée et qu'aucun « scénario catastrophe » n'avait été mis sur pied.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:42 am (0) comments /

Electronic voting machines that jammed in several municipal elections in the province last week and spewed out contradictory results have robbed Quebecers of their confidence in the voting system, former mayoral candidate Pierre Bourque says.

That's why he's banding together with other failed candidates from Quebec City and Trois Rivieres to mount a constitutional challenge against electronic voting in the hopes of having new elections ordered in the three cities, Bourque said at a press conference at his Vision Montreal party headquarters.

"Anyone has the right to have a vote," Bourque said, joined by candidates from the other cities. "And this was not the case."

The candidates will also write to Quebec's chief electoral officer to demand an investigation.

This week, a judge ordered a manual recount for 15 of Montreal's 105 council positions. The recounts are to begin Tuesday.

Hugo Lepine, who lost a bid for a council seat in Quebec City, said candidates in his municipality who want recounts are stymied because the city used an entirely electronic voting system. There are no paper ballots to recount, Lepine said. (Montreal had paper ballots fed into a vote-counting machine.)

Bourque and his Quebec City and Trois Rivieres counterparts say their constitutional challenge would be based on the principle that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Quebec's charter of rights provide every citizen a vote. That right is eroded when election results are riddled with errors because of failed equipment, Bourque said.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:22 am (0) comments /

Many have been criticising Nigeria as a funny nations where policies are adopted without the knowledge of the populace; Many alarming questions have been raised on why Electronic voting, popularly known as E-voting should really be adopted in the 2007 elections in a country where almost 60% of the population are illiterate.

Personally, the introduction of E-voting system in the country will amount to introduction of unacceptable risk of error and manipulation. Electronic voting entails several means of determining people's collective intent electronically, but in the dearth. Nigeria's electoral body which wants to embark on electronic voting should sit back and recall the fact that Nigeria's major problem lies mostly in unstable electricity supply which is a sinqua non for e-voting. We cannot dream of climbing higher by remaining where and what we are in Nigeria.

INDEPENDENT National Electoral Commission (INEC) said yesterday that it would test run the controversial Electronic Voting System (EVS) in the planned revalidation of voters register next January.

Chairman of the commission Prof. Maurice Iwu, announced the new date for the revalidation of voters registrar at meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC).

The INEC chairman who slammed critics of the EVS, however denied importation of "any specific equipment for any of the components of EVs for the 2007 general election.

Although he admitted that the commission "had studied many types of instrument for each aspect of the EVs, the chairman insisted that the Commission was yet to select any of the components.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:15 am (0) comments /

Le 6 novembre prochain, plusieurs centaines de milliers d'électeurs de Québec et de plusieurs dizaines de municipalités québécoises expérimenteront, la plupart pour la première fois, des machines à voter électroniques. Nul doute que plusieurs électeurs se réjouiront que leur système de votation fasse un saut dans l'ère moderne. Mais s'ils pensent que ces machines sont aussi sûres et fiables qu'on veut bien leur laisser croire, ils auront de mauvaises surprises.

Il ne faut pas confondre les machines à voter électroniques à boutons-poussoirs ou à écran tactile avec les machines à lecteur optique qui seront utilisées à Montréal, comme elles le furent d'ailleurs en 2001. Les Montréalais marqueront alors leur choix avec un crayon feutre sur une feuille de papier qu'ils introduiront dans une machine et qui sera ensuite lue par le lecteur optique de celle-ci.

En cas de recomptage, les bulletins en papier pourront être comptés pour vérifier si les machines n'ont pas fait d'erreurs et pour examiner les véritables intentions des électeurs.

La Loi sur les référendums et les élections dans les municipalités du Québec prévoit que, conformément à une entente entre la ministre des Affaires municipales et le Directeur général des élections du Québec, une municipalité peut faire l'essai, lors d'un scrutin, de nouveaux mécanismes de votation. Les municipalités qui utiliseront des machines à voter électroniques le 6 novembre prochain, dont la Ville de Québec, ont toutes conclu une telle entente qui a pour effet de remplacer plusieurs articles de la loi.

D'entrée de jeu, notons que peu de mécanismes de sécurité ont été mis en place pour répondre aux préoccupations soulevées hier. Les paragraphes 173,1 à 173,3 ordonnent au président d'élection d'effectuer des tests sur les machines en présence des candidats ou de leurs représentants au plus tard le cinquième jour précédant le vote, de prendre des mesures de sécurité adéquates et de s'assurer qu'aucune communication électronique ne puisse être établie pour perturber l'intégrité du système.

Ces dispositions ne vont pas assez loin et ne sont pas assez précises. D'une part, le président d'élection, à moins d'être informaticien, n'aura pas les compétences nécessaires pour vérifier si le système a été altéré d'une façon ou d'une autre. D'autre part, l'entente ne fait aucune mention du type de scellé qui sera apposé sur les machines une fois qu'elles auront été testées et ne prévoit pas de mesures de sécurité pour les protéger dans l'endroit où on les entreposera jusqu'au jour du scrutin (soit pour une période minimale de cinq jours). Il n'est pas impossible d'imaginer qu'une personne, un employé de l'édifice par exemple, pourrait s'y introduire, modifier le logiciel des machines (pour qu'un vote pour le candidat X se transforme en un vote pour le candidat Y, par exemple) et remettre de nouveaux scellés sans que personne ne s'en rende compte.

L'article 223 de l'entente est également problématique. Il mentionne que, lorsque l'électeur quitte la salle de votation avant d'avoir terminé de voter, le scrutateur en chef ou son adjoint doit peser sur le bouton "Je ne veux pas voter pour..." avant de désactiver sa carte. Or, ni l'un ni l'autre ne peut être considéré comme impartial puisque plusieurs d'entre eux sont recommandés par les partis politiques au président des élections. Et pourtant, dans ce cas-ci, l'un ou l'autre aura le loisir de voter à l'insu de tous.

Nous venons d'apprendre que la firme à qui l'on a confié le déroulement du vote électronique du 6 novembre a loué ses terminaux à écran tactile d'une firme américaine, MicroVote, de l'Indiana. Nous avons donc confié nos élections municipales aux Américains !

Les responsables des élections étaient-ils au courant de cela et ont-ils approuvé cette sous-traitance ? Savaient-ils que le sous-traitant faisait lui-même de la sous-traitance ? Que les réponses à ces questions soient négatives ou positives, ils ont, semble-t-il, failli à leur devoir. En effet, une simple recherche dans Internet leur aurait appris, entre autres, que son président, James M. Ries Jr, a fait la déclaration suivante à propos des machines de sa compagnie : "Il n'y a vraiment aucune façon de prouver à un électeur que son vote a été enregistré exactement comme il l'entendait. Il doit avoir une foi aveugle dans l'intégrité des responsables locaux de l'élection"(1). En d'autres termes, on ne pourra jamais dire avec certitude que les résultats qui ont été certifiés à Québec reflètent exactement la volonté de l'électorat.

De plus, les responsables des élections à Québec se sont-ils demandés s'ils pouvaient vraiment se fier à ces machines ? Aux États-Unis, la responsabilité de la vérification des machines de votation revient à des laboratoires que l'on nomme Independent Testing Authorities (ITA). Notons tout d'abord que ces laboratoires n'ont rien d'indépendant puisqu'ils sont entièrement financés par les manufacturiers eux-mêmes. Ils ne font pas non plus un travail exhaustif. Selon Bill Carson, de Carson Manufacturing, la compagnie qui fabrique les machines de MicroVote - eh oui, le sous-sous-traitant ! - "si l'on veut que les machines fonctionnent convenablement, les ITA devraient, pour qu'elles soient testées minutieusement et qu'on puisse prévoir toutes les éventualités, dépenser 10 fois le temps et l'argent qu'il en a fallu pour les concevoir. Et au moment où les tests sont effectués, ces derniers sont déjà désuets parce que la technologie change trop rapidement."(2)

Il semble donc qu'aucun organisme crédible et indépendant n'ait vérifié les machines électroniques à écran tactile de dimanche dernier, que ce soit aux États-Unis ou au Québec.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:02 pm (0) comments /

nine polling stations in Quebec City stayed open 30 minutes longer, because of a computer problem.

At the beginning of the day, ballots were being fed into the system too quickly, and the computers crashed, city officials say. The glitches caused a backlog in the voting process, and officials decided to leave the polls open longer as a result.

In Lévis, Que., one polling station will stay open until 8:50, because a power failure at the polling station during the day.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:03 pm (0) comments /

Mass-scale systems intended to deliver e-Government in a democratic context pose a range of under-explored design problems. In particular, we are far from having identified a core set of requirements for such systems. The need for confidentiality, privacy, transparency, accountability and user control are all critical to the success of such systems yet we are still far from determining how to implement such requirements and how the design of such systems will affect user behaviour. In this workshop we aim to address these very broad issues in general together with a more focused examination of e-voting as an exemplar of e-government systems. This exemplar provides a sharp characterisation of many of the issues and design tradeoffs we encounter in many e-Government systems. Despite support for trial and adoption of new voting technologies by the government, which sees electronic voting as a means of increasing turnout, we have not seen wide-scale adoption of the technology. E-voting requirements cover topics as varied as privacy/anonymity, authentication, verifiability, flexibility (with respect to different electoral systems) and usability. In addition, there is a need to specify the requirements for a trusted electronic voting system for UK elections. The diversity of issues suggest deployment of e-voting requires an interdisciplinary approach.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:47 am (0) comments /

Nous sommes des citoyens réunis par notre inquiétude face à l’arrivée des machines à voter dans nos villes respectives.

Nous ne sommes en rien opposés à la technologie, nous nous interrogeons seulement sur son bon usage. Certains d’entre nous sont informaticiens.

Le vote électronique est en voie de se généraliser en France, dans un grand silence. Nous n’entendons parler que de modernisation inéluctable, de problèmes d’organisation et d’économies, sans la moindre réflexion de fond.

/

We are French citizens, many of which computer scientists. We are preoccupied with the recent infatuation about electronic voting. It is taking place without any large scale debate. We are told it is all about inevitable modernization, organization, and saving money. No background discussion.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:07 am (0) comments /

Government plans to introduce e-voting for next year's local council
elections have been dropped. According to the government spokesman
(Elections Minister Harriet Harman), "the time is not right". The
government has not ruled out further attempts to introduce e-voting. Oliver
Heald MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, has
described the whole process as a shambles, citing the security concerns with
e-voting.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:23 am (0) comments /

The guidelines, published in late June, call for vendors to follow better programming practices and make some suggestions for addressing problems with vote integrity.

Computer security experts say the guidelines are a step in the right direction, but fall short of making voting systems secure. They also don't require systems to produce a voter-verified paper audit trail, which would allow voters to confirm their vote.

The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines were developed under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) Section 202 mandate that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) update the 2002 Voting System Standards to address increasingly complex voting system technology. They were designed for state and local election officials to help ensure that new voting systems function accurately and reliably.

The Guidelines are provided for a 90 day public comment period which officially began June 29, 2005 upon notice in the Federal Register. All comments must be received by EAC on or before 5:00 p.m. EDT on September 30, 2005.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 12:06 pm (0) comments /

Electronic voting has, unfortunately, moved from the realm of science and statistics to conspiracy theory by overheated partisans. Sonia Arrison and Vince Vasquez puncture the myths of the conspiracists in their paper. Even leading Democrats such as Joe Andrew, Bill Clinton’s handpicked chairman of the Democratic National Committee, have pointed out that while problems remain that demand vigilance, electronic voting aids the poor, the elderly, minorities, and is more accurate. Last year, Mr. Andrew lamented that “When it comes to electronic voting, most liberals are just plain old-fashioned nuts.”

While it is true that no system is tamper-proof, it is also true that it takes significant expertise and plotting to hack a machine, ironically making the system more secure than traditional paper ballots.

Historically, paper ballots were overly manhandled, being placed into boxes, moved around and passed through the hands of low-level poll workers to precinct supervisors and county officials. Fraud was less detectable, and more prevalent, because prescored ballots could be easily corrupted or votes altered with a simple punch through a hole, or mark of a pen. With DRE, features such as remote vote storage and a visual verification screen of voter selections are innovating these problems out of existence. America's voting system could become even healthier if other new procedures are adopted at the same time.

E-voting opponents demand a verified paper-trail backup to make sure votes are counted properly. But paper trails are meaningless if manual counts and voter verification are still prone to fraud and human error. And verified paper trails for DRE's have proven to be expensive, potentially bankrupting cash-strapped counties and eroding the efficiency of voting management. The back-up issue is serious, but there are less-Luddite solutions, such as electronic or audio verification.

The real key to making sure that the electronic back-ups are secure will be in reviewing the code that runs the machines, a simple procedure that counties should make part of the normal election-preparing process. And all indications are that the public approves of such a move. Indeed, despite the newness of the use DRE technology, public approval for electronic voting remains strong.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 5:38 am (0) comments /

The First Minister was dazzled by dancing robots and shown the latest developments in electronic voting as he visited Scotland's oldest university.

Mr McConnell opened the Gateway and John Cole buildings, two state-of-the-art facilities at St Andrews University. About A£10 million has been invested in the buildings, which house the university's schools of management and computer science.

Staff and students from the computer science department showed the First Minister how the latest hi-tech electronic voting software could be used in future elections.

[30 April 2003]

On the eve of the elections, a computer scientist in St Andrews is researching the possibilities of voting over the internet in the future.

Tim Storer, a Computer Science PhD student at the University of St Andrews is working with Microsoft under their studentship scheme to investigate Remote Electronic Voting over the internet. The system he is investigating could see the possibility of voters being able to vote from home or anywhere in the World via email or text messaging.

Tim began the £50,000, three year project with Microsoft last September, and will go to Washington this Saturday for a three week internship to inspect voting machines currently used there. The e-voting project is a combination of Tim’s main interests of politics (especially electoral history and statistics) and computer science.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 6:37 pm (0) comments /

Young people in British Columbia can now use their mobile phones to make their voices heard on key voter issues, thanks to a new mobile network developed by the University of British Columbia’s Mobile MUSE Project.

Political organizers in British Columbia are hoping to use cellphone text messaging to get young people interested in politics.

The non-partisan group "Get Your Vote On" plans to blitz the cellphones of its young members with polls and alerts in anticipation of the May 17 provincial election.

The program is based on the idea that young people need to be engaged on their own terms, said group spokesperson Olive Dempsey. She thinks the future of democracy may rest with the cellphone.

"Democracy does not begin and end with a ballot box," said Dempsey.

"Democracy is about building democratic habits and it is about engagement and that is what we are going to be doing."

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 7:13 am (0) comments /

a couple weeks ago, the chairman of the E.A.C. [Electoral Advisory Committee] announced the introduction of electronic voting of which fingerprinting of voters is a feature.

ORDERS FOR the procurement of 40 machines capable of triggering a ballot by matching fingerprints are likely to be placed with the two overseas-based companies shortlisted for the purpose within the next two weeks.

The machines should arrive in the island in time to be used in local government elections due by September, following a pilot test to determine their effectiveness.

The cost of the equipment has not been disclosed although the chairman of the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC), Professor Errol Miller, told The Gleaner some time ago a budget had been set aside for the purpose.

He told The Gleaner on Monday that the technical committee set up in April to determine the specifications to which United States-based Cogent Systems Ltd, and French company SAGEM, would build the equipment had completed its work.

...

Mr. Brieffs [senior vice president at Cogent] confirmed Jamaica would be the first country to use the equipment in an actual election, but said he anticipated no major problems.

According to him, "it does not matter what the system is being used for. Whether for immigration purposes or for border control, the concept remains the same." He said the software designed for Jamaica was "user friendly and designed to keep the election flow."

...

With the cost likely to run into millions of dollars, the EAC is already exploring other uses to which the equipment can be put when not being used in elections. Areas being examined are law enforcement and the education and social security systems.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday (March 1 [2005]) amended three Bills paving the way for the electronic voter identification system to be introduced to the island's electoral process.

...

The system, which depends on finger print identification, will issue a ballot paper once the fingerprint has been applied and is found to be the appropriate fingerprint for the elector, who has presented it. Voting will then take place in the normal way.

The Bill also makes allowances for the presiding officer to revert to the original system in situations where the mechanism malfunctions and in such a case, the individual will be required to prove his identification by other means.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 7:23 am (0) comments /

A senior Australian election official will attend a conference this week on electronic voting to be organized by the National Election Commission, Korea's top election watchdog.

The Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, ..., will share its experience at the "E-voting and Electronic Democracy: Present and the Future" conference in Seoul, March 17-18 [2005]

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 7:13 am (0) comments /

An experimental online vote for the parliamentary elections will take place on March 20 in 50 different Bulgarian towns.

An initiative committee will start a campaign for popularizing the e-vote among the people aged 16 to 25 across the country, the initiators announced Monday in Veliko Tarnovo.

The March 20 e-vote will begin 7.00 a.m. to end 7.00 p.m. and more than 1,000 young people are expected to cast their vote. The experimental vote will be organized although there is no e-vote law adopted in Bulgaria.

It was earlier announced that building Bulgaria's online-voting system will cost at least BGN 4 M.

Bulgaria's MPs have introduced a bill for e-voting in general and presidential elections, as well as in the election of Bulgarian members for the EU Parliament. According to the bill, those who want to take part in the vote online would have to file applications three weeks earlier. A few days later, they would receive user name and password in a registered letter.

Lawmakers hope that introducing the e-vote can boost polls turnout.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 7:11 am (0) comments /

Comfidex Corporation of New York, New York will introduce a secure, Web-
based e-voting system that provides paper-based audit trails for
recounts while preserving the anonymity of both the vote and the voter.
VoteFiler is implemented using commodity PCs, and is designed to
transparently coexist with traditional voting systems so that it may be
adopted at a pace acceptable to the voting public.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 7:05 am (0) comments /

The Nagoya High Court on Wednesday declared void a city assembly election held in Kani, Gifu Prefecture in July 2003 after finding a temporary malfunction of electronic voting machines had gravely affected the election result.

According to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, the ruling is the first to nullify the result of an election using an electronic voting system.

...

A total of 189 electronic voting machines were set up at 29 polling places for the city assembly election held on July 20, 2003.

But the voting system was halted temporarily for between nine minutes and 83 minutes due to overheating of the servers and other reasons.

...

Prof. Shigeki Yokoi of Nagoya University's graduate school said the Kani municipal government did not hold a trial election to verify whether the voting system properly worked. He said it was necessary for municipal and prefectural governments planning to employ electronic voting to test the system thoroughly. He added the central government should provide financial help for the introduction of electronic voting system because they are expensive.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 6:36 am (0) comments /

A review of voting machines used in Maryland's most populous county for the November elections found that 7 percent of the machines had problems such as frozen screens or failed to boot up.

An additional 5 percent in Montgomery County had vote tallies that were considerably lower than other machines used in the same precincts, causing elections officials to deem them ``suspect,'' according to the report released Tuesday. It was drafted by the county in December for the local election board.

But state officials disputed those figures, saying a review of the county's machines conducted by the state and the equipment's manufacturer showed that only 0.4 percent had significant problems in the Nov. 3 election.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:32 pm (0) comments /

The municipal government of Niimi, Okayama Prefecture, which held the nation's first elections using electronic voting, will return to the traditional handwritten voting system for its April 24 mayoral and city assembly elections, following a merger with four neighboring municipalities.

The municipal government, which used the electronic voting system for its past two elections, proposed the electronic system for upcoming elections to the four municipalities that will merge on March 31.

However, the plan was rejected on the ground that there was not enough time to prepare for the next election.

...

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry's election department said 10 municipalities had used e-voting in 12 elections and predicted that the system would become widely used in the future.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 9:30 pm (0) comments /

DailyKos is reporting that a group of senators and representatives including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Tubbs Jones, have proposed an 'open-source' voting bill. This bill (The Count Every Vote Act of 2005 [PDF]) corrects many of the problems in the last election. Notably, it requires paper receipts, and that the source and object code of all electronic voting machines to be open and readable by the public.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:07 pm (2) comments /

The ongoing cost of maintaining electronic voting machines was discussed again at the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee today.

Questions were raised about the big variations in the cost of storing and insuring the machines in different parts of the country.

The total cost of maintaining the machines is likely to run to €1 million each year for the next 20 years.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 8:41 pm (1) comments /

Despite the recent decision in the U.S. to use printed records to improve the credibility of electronic voting, it seems unlikely that electronic voting will be used widespread in Australia, according to a spokesperson for the Australian Electoral Commission.

...

Tim Evans, the director of elections systems & Policy for the Australian Electoral Commission, does not believe that widespread electronic voting will be useful in Australia

...

"First of all, for electronic voting to spread throughout Australia, there would need to be an amendment to the Australian Commonwealth Elections Act. This will only happen if Parliament is persuaded that it would create advantages to voting, and the security of each vote would be maintained or improved.

...

Despite electronic voting trials being successful in the Australian Capitol Territory, Evans, believes that this is only because the region is different to the rest of Australia.

"ACT has a very complicated voting system. Many people cannot access many of the 100 voting stations in the region and the electoral process has complicated layers attached to it, so it takes a long time to count the votes. So electronic voting is useful for this region. However, there are over 8,000 polling stations in the rest of Australia, which are within easy access to populations.

"It would take a much bigger effort to transform 8,000 polling stations into electronic voting stations, than it took to build these systems in ACT.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 8:50 pm (0) comments /

An independent assessment of the electronic voting system has cost the state €640,000 in less than a year.

The Commission on Electronic Voting was set up last March to advise the government on the safety and accuracy of the system. It has run up a bill of €640,000 up until the end of last year and its final cost is likely to be substantially higher. The group is planning to hire experts to run extensive tests on the voting system — which could take nine months — before it will be able to determine if it is usable. The technical work is likely to be costly.

Computerised voting was set to be rolled out last June in the local and European elections but was withdrawn at the last minute amid concerns over its accuracy. The government was attacked for failing to assess the reliability of the €52m system fully before purchasing it.

The 6,200 electronic voting machines are now being stored in warehouses across the country at a cost so far of €660,000.

“The system is flawed and will always be — the government should cut its losses. Spending more and more money on it may not be a wise thing to do. It has already cost a fortune and it doesn’t make any sense to keep throwing money at it in the vain hope that they will be able to use it in the future,” said Joe McCarthy, a chartered engineer and a strong critic of electronic voting.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 8:35 pm (0) comments /

The risk analysis identified 5 material risks in connection with the use of the system at the June elections:

* error in the system as a whole;
* error in voting machine software affecting all machines;
* tampering with software to alter election result;
* tampering with ballot modules during transportation;
* damage to machines before elections.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 4:22 pm (0) comments /

The prototype that Diebold Inc. is now touting is exactly what some critics of the ATM-like machines have been demanding for several years.

Even so, paper records alone are not enough to satisfy computer scientists who say transparency in the electronic machines' design and software must complement paper backups.

...

Critics of North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold say the AccuView Printer Module is a step in the right direction but doesn't address the potential for buggy software or malfunctioning hardware that could misrecord votes or expose voting systems to hackers, deletions or other disasters.

...

Computer scientists also are concerned that the handful of private laboratories licensed to certify voting equipment, including the printer module, still operate in secret and without any federal guidelines.

"It's a very, very small step forward in terms of security of elections," said Avi Rubin, technical director of the Information Security Institute of Johns Hopkins University and co-author of a scathing report on Diebold machines.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 4:12 pm (0) comments /

Officials ... are due before the Oireachtas public accounts committee today to answer questions about the electronic voting debacle.

The department spent around €50m on the initiative, which was then shelved due to security concerns.

The Government was planning to introduce the system nationwide during last year's local and European elections.

However, this plan was abandoned six weeks before the vote after an independent commission expressed concern about the accuracy of the voting machines and the possibility of electoral fraud.

A lack of public confidence in e-voting means that the Government may be forced into writing off its EUR50 million investment in electronic ballot systems

...

The government was due to introduce e-voting at local and European elections on 11 June 2004 but had to abandon its plans following the publication of an interim report of the Independent Commission on Electronic Voting (ICTE) [Ed. note: should be CEV] which raised doubts over the accuracy of the software used in the system.

According to the Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-Voting (ICTE) submission to the CEV, the chosen Nedap/Powervote electronic voting system had a fundamental design flaw because it had no mechanism to verify that votes would be recorded accurately in an actual election. Consequently, results obtained from the system could not be said to be accurate, claimed the five-member independent body.

Other flaws in the system identified in the ICTE submission included possible software errors and the use of the graphical user interface programming language Object Pascal for a safety-critical system.

Although the commission's remit was advisory, the government abided by its recommendation that the system not be used until further testing had established just how secure it was.

However, Michael Noonan told the Irish Times that even if the system was found to be safe, few ministers would give it the go-ahead because the public would have little trust in it.

...

"The criticisms contained in the report of the Independent Commission on Electronic Voting make it clear that this was a fiasco of the highest order," said Fergus O'Dowd TD., Fine Gael's spokesman on the Environment. "Considering all the information that is available to him, Minister Roche needs to fully explain the findings of these inquiries."

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 5:43 pm (0) comments /

The Voting System Performance Rating (VSPR) project ... [will provide] a set of tests will be published that will let e-voting systems be evaluated in areas such as privacy, accessibility and accuracy.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 1:48 am (0) comments /

Diebold Election Systems, a target of many electronic-voting critics during the 2004 U.S. election, announced Thursday it has completed the design for a printer that would give its e-voting machines a paper trail.

The Information Technology Association of America, which has defended e-voting machines as accurate and safe, says

the following to help protect the financial gain of corporations:

Diebold's move appears to be focused on the demand for paper-trail ballots. "It's a situation where companies are going to provide what their customers want," says Bob Cohen, executive vice president of the ITAA, which counts e-voting machine makers among its members.

ITAA officials have questioned if voter-verified paper trails will provide a significant benefit while adding costs to e-voting machines. Though the ITAA maintains that widespread attacks on e-voting machines are unlikely, officials there suggest that programmers smart enough to change ballots inside e-voting machines could also manipulate the printouts.

"Our point all along is that paper-based solutions are one alternative," Cohen says. "It gets to be as much an issue of peace of mind for the voters as anything else."

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 1:22 am (0) comments /

"It's amazing to see people's faces when they drop the ballots in the box ... Many have waited their whole lives to vote," said Copeland, who also described Iraqis dancing and singing in the Maryland hotel parking lot. "People were clapping when their families voted."

Unlike the high-tech electronic voting and short paper ballots seen in November's U.S. election, Iraqi ballots were four 8-inch-by-11inch pages that listed 111 political entities and more than 7,000 candidates, Copeland said.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 8:21 am (0) comments /

Does voting by any method other than traditional polling booths and paper ballots jeopardize either voters' right to privacy or their guarantee that their vote will be counted fairly? Not only has it been debated, but the issue has been settled for several municipalities right here in Canada.

Talk to John Hollins, the chief electoral officer for the Province of Ontario, and he'll give you the story. "It started back in 1976 when East York and Mississauga brought in punch card voting and evolved in the eighties with the optical scan in places like Etobicoke and Scarborough. At the time they used a centralized optical scan where you brought all the ballots into one place and the machine scanned them."

By the 1988 elections Toronto and North York went with the optical scan at the polling level because they didn't like the idea of ballots travelling from the polling locations. "They started with one machine for every three or four polls, but they ran into a few problems, so by 1991 they brough in scanners to all the polls."

By 1996 the experiment was working well enough to encourage the Ontario government to advance things... During the voting on Metro Toronto's amalgamation the City of North York used telephone voting. They had so much success that other municipalities followed suit."

Why did Ontario decide to forsake the tried and true for something that, almost by defintion, has a margin of error? ... Elections -- at least the operational side -- are about credibility. So why did Ontario municipalities opt for systems which were, if only slightly, less credible?

According to Hollins, the quality of the people who were staffing the polling stations was not what it had been, or what it should be

The feeling was that by introducing new voting techniques and technology into the mix they could weed out incompetent staff, thereby increasing the quality and accuracy. In addition, voting by mail or phone would improve accessibility. Finally, it would be more efficient.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:40 pm (0) comments /

Blackwell orders counties to use optical scanning
Touch-screen voting out in Ohio

COLUMBUS - Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell took the option of computerized touch-screen voting machines off the table yesterday and ordered all counties to deploy optical-scan devices using paper ballots by the November election.

"We have a tight election reform deployment schedule, too few allocated federal and state dollars, and not one electronic voting device certified under Ohio's standards and rules," he said.

Blackwell's demand to install optical scans angers counties

COLUMBUS - County elections officials yesterday voiced frustration over what they perceive to be another shift in direction for Ohio when it comes to updating voting systems.

"We have got boards [of elections] that have been working as long as two years toward [touch-screen voting], and all of a sudden the secretary of state has given us approximately five weeks to change course," said Keith Cunningham, Allen County elections director and incoming president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials.

[permanent link] posted by rakerman : 10:16 pm (0) comments /