Electronic Voting

Victor

Originally posted by Cork
The eletronic voting system has worked in Irish elections.

"Worked" yes, but with no independent way of checking if the result was right.

Originally posted by Cork
If people want veriffication - let the independant commission put in test data into the system to test the validity of the system (interrogation software).

But they will only be able to test specific data, not real data, not all combinations (they run into the trillions).

Originally posted by Cork
Opposition demands for a facility to enable people to spoil their votes & for print outs is absurd.

Who has asked for this? Any links?

Originally posted by Cork
Should we have a keyboard installed - so that people can write their comments?

Who has asked for this? Any links? are you just hiding your party's inadequacies by throwing in irrrelevancies?

Originally posted by Cork
The facts are the purposed system is a vast improvement on long hand counts with political partys haggling over desputed votes.

It costs more, is less transparent, has no audit trail, will alienate older voters and only advances most count results by maybe 12 hours .... how is this "a vast improvement"?

Originally posted by Cork
Before - the last general election - what political partys opposed eletronic voting?

In my last post I told you to check John Bruton's letter. Am I to draw conclusions about your ability to [strike]spam[/strike] write, but not read / understand English?

http://www.finegael.ie/fine-gael-news.cfm/NewsID/23345/action/detail/level/page/aid/10/year/2004/month/2

An Taoiseach
Bertie Ahern T.D.,
Department of An Taoiseach,
Government Buildings,
Merrion St.,
Dublin 2.
____________

8th April 2002

Dear Taoiseach,

I am writing to express my concern about the introduction of electronic voting including Meath. [/B]

corley

Hi,

I've been following this thread with interest. As a techie (and as someone who was involved in a recount that took over a week) I would be totally opposed to electronic voting. When you see the costs associated with this system and the amount of hassle its causing the government you start to wonder what the motivation is behind introducing it. Well I have a theory about this....

Ask anyone who has been present at a count in a local, general and European election and they will tell you that there's regularly a big batch of "spoilt" votes which follow a particular pattern. These votes typically have 3 (or 4 or whatever the relevant number of candidates is) X's, one beside each Fianna Fail candidate. As the counting staff cannot determine which FF candidate got the first preference, second preference etc. these are deemed to be spoilt even though they are quite clearly votes for Fianna Fail. Although voters for other parties occasionally make this mistake Fianna Fail suffers from this problem to a much greater degree than any other party.

With electronic voting this mistake would not happen and these votes would go to Fianna Fail candidates (assuming that the voters in question weren't intimidated by the prospect of voting using a computer - but that's what the 4.5 million euro advertising campaign for electronic voting is trying to avoid). The result of introducing electronic voting should be to give FF more votes in every constituency across the country. As a result there will probably be 1 or 2 more FF TDs elected than would have been under paper-based voting as these extra votes may make the difference in one or two marginal constituencies..

As I say it's just a theory but I think it explains why the Government are being so dogged about this (and why the PDs aren't being overly keen on pushing the idea!).

Quatre Mains

- aside from the above arguments against e-voting, I will miss the whole counting marathon, which makes for classic tv and is a also real ritual in this country. By moving to the new systems all that drama and sense of involvement is removed - people will no longer sit up at 3am hoping that some Independant gets in, and all the community halls around the country which have always been buzzing will be empty. It's not a disgrace or scandal, but I do think it results in politics and daily life moving one step further apart, which is a bad thing given that voter apathy is on the increase in Ireland as it is.

Cheers
Neil

Victor

Originally posted by corley
Ask anyone who has been present at a count in a local, general and European election and they will tell you that there's regularly a big batch of "spoilt" votes which follow a particular pattern. These votes typically have 3 (or 4 or whatever the relevant number of candidates is) X's, one beside each Fianna Fail candidate.

"X" could also mean no to FF, but I understand your point. However, even if I'm not a fan of FF, if people want to vote for them, that is their right.

Sparks

Originally posted by Cork
I think that eletronic voting is on the way & it is about time.

Indeed, and even the most vocal critics of the proposed system have said that evoting is a good idea - it's just this specific implementation that there's a problem with. Think of it as saying "cars are a good thing, but can I have one that doesn't have this seven inch steel spike mounted in the middle of the steering wheel please?"

The biggest joke is that the Irish want a facility to spoil their votes..

No, they don't. They want to be able to vote "None of the Above". Bertie's just putting in the "spoilt vote" button in the policy-making version of "answering a question you were not asked".

The Independent audit trail does not even make sense - has our opposition ever heard of interrogation sofware?

Nope, and neither have I. Odd that, since I've got a degree in Computer Engineering. Would you be talking about testing software perchance?
The VVAT is a basic, required feature. And it's not like we're asking for something new. The Austrailian system has a VVAT and it's source code is available for downloading on the internet for anyone interested.

Printing receipts of how you vote

Stop there. A receipt is not a VVAT, as you'd know had you seen Prime Time, where that point was set straight by Margaret McGaley when it came up. The voter does not get access to the VVAT, they simply see it printed off, confirm that it's what they actually entered when they voted, and then it's stored in the machine.

How many trees would be needed ti cut down to print receipts. Maybe, the Green Party have some answers.

Not as many as needed to print the forty million euro notes we need to pay for the current, untrustworthy system....

The eletronic voting system has worked in Irish elections.
Fact.

Is it? Was Mary actually not elected, or did some script kiddie with a grudge tweak the results?
And before you say "don't be silly", you should know that there is noone in the state who can definitively answer yes or no to that. Does that not give you pause for thought?

If people want veriffication - let the independant commission put in test data into the system to test the validity of the system (interrogation software).

Doesn't work. As TQM points out, if you test every unit produced in a factory, it does not give you a 0% failure rate. That's a basic fact of testing.

The facts are the purposed system is a vast improvement on long hand counts with political partys haggling over desputed votes.

Actually, it isn't - one's trustworthy (the hand count) and the other isn't. But evoting does have the potential to be better. Just not this specific system.

corley

Originally posted by Victor
"X" could also mean no to FF, but I understand your point. However, even if I'm not a fan of FF, if people want to vote for them, that is their right.

I agree with you totally - votes for any party should be attributed to them and there is a problem with this at the moment in the (paper-based) Irish electoral system. The problem is that the (predominantly FF) government are trying to railroad through a system that is fundamentally flawed so that (according to my theory) they will benefit from these votes which would otherwise have been deemed to have been spoiled.

star gazer

The government parties should realise by now that they are not getting anywhere with the system they are trying to bring in. An independent panel fifteen weeks before the full roll out ofthe new system makes no logical sense, there isn't enough time to go through all the issues. It looks like a delaying tactic and nothing else. The Fine Gael, Labour and Greens motion this week almost got passed, only a majority of 5 when the government (including indpenedent TDs) can have a gap of twenty votes between yes and no votes for government amendments. There is now no credible reason that the government has given that we cannot at least postpone the introduction of evoting for proper scrutiny by an independent commission.

gandalf

Well I think the most worrying aspect of this is that with all this adverse publicity that voter apathy will increase and not decrease with the way the government are introducing a flawed system.

Electronic voting would seem the way to go but with proper safeguards that all is above board which this particular system doesn't give. A receipt system papertrial (which the voter sees but doesn't take away) is the most logical system from my point of view. If theres a problem with one particular memory card/disk then they can check the roll.

There is a part of me as well that will miss the late counts, the actually drama of watching politicians sweat it out and the tension associated with it. If anyone saw the Dublin North count (I think it was anyway) in the last General Election and the way Nora Owen was dumped out then you would realise what I was talking about, sterile and no sense of occasion.

I also wonder why this is being pushed through in such a cavalier manner. Voting is one of the most basic rights for a citizen of our country. People fought and died to give us these rights 80 - 90 years ago and this current government are threating these rights as something that can be diminished with another smutty spin exercise.

Gandalf.

bonkey

Originally posted by Cork
The eletronic voting system has worked in Irish elections.

Fact.

No.

The electronic voting system has been used in Irish elections, and its results were accepted.

There is a significant difference.

If people want veriffication - let the independant commission put in test data into the system to test the validity of the system (interrogation software).

Testing how the system copes with various data is a small fraction of the overall testing which would need to be done.

Opposition demands for a facility to enable people to spoil their votes & for print outs is absurd.

Taking a different tack to the significant number of replies that have already questioned this....

Exactly why is it absurd?

The facts are the purposed system is a vast improvement on long hand counts with political partys haggling over desputed votes.

To quote The Princess Bride : "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

They are not facts. They are nothing close to facts. Facts are verifiably proveable, or simply axiomatic (self-evidently true). That the proposed system is a vast improvement is far from proven, and only the most politically and technologically inept would attempt to claim it was axiomatically true.

The proposed system has had an almost innumerable number of potential flaws and weaknesses pointed out in it that do not exist with the current system, which means that any claim that it is an improvement is - at best - highly speculative until such times as each and every one of those potential issues has been dealt with - either by showing it is not, in fact an issue, or by modifying the system so that the issue is no longer a factor.

Before - the last general election - what political partys opposed eletronic voting?

Who cares.

The question is whether or not - based on what we know today - the system is trustworthy - or at least as trustworthy as the manual system it is to replace. The answer is that it is not possible to categorically state that it is.

So whether or not any party opposed this some time ago, if they are opposing it today, based on the facts that are known today, then saying "but you didn't oppose it some time ago so that doesn't count" is just plain daft.

Or would you like to assert that your own beloved party has never once in its entire existence changed its position on anything?????

jc

Sparks

From RTE:

The Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, has said he will be bringing proposals relating to electronic voting to Cabinet tomorrow.

Mr Cullen said he had a very clear view himself on how to proceed.

I'll bet the so-and-so does...

Mr Cullen said that, in his view, all the fears raised about the system had been allayed, but that if necessary, any other issues that were raised would also be dealt with.

This is a disaster. How the hell did a technically incompetent idiot get to make a decision that in effect eliminates what little trust was left in the political system - that we could trust our votes were actually counted?

And what kind of public debate is this? It's done the rounds of the current affairs programmes: Morning Ireland, Questions and Answers, Prime Time, and The week in politics, and it's ben in the focus for a fortnight now, and not one person has pointed out that noone in the state has the source code to the voting software!

I mean, for pete's sake, it's the first thing that should have been brought up, that noone can verify that the machines do what they are meant to. No-one. Not in the public, not in the government, not in the cabinet.
And not a word about it on any program!

:mad: Gah! :mad:

Paddyo

Sparks

I did hear on one of the radio programs last week, probably on newstalk that an Irish company had seen and checked the source code relating to the electronic voiting.

Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the company.

I do agree that it looks as if we are going to have electronic voting pushed in by the 'Ah sure it will be alright' brigade, using the ostrich system of running the Country.

Paddyo

ecksor

Nathean performed a code review.

There's a report of the results on www.electronicvoting.ie in pdf formats.

Each module analysed has the note 'No issues' or 'No new issues'. No idea what the 'old issues' are, anybody know where to find out what they are? Also, each module contains the name of the reviewer. Same person in each case and only one name. Also there's nothing accompanying the document to tell us what the scope of the audit is or what exactly the auditor is checking against in the way of standards or checklists/taxonomies.

I did a code review of an e-government system a few years ago for security concerns on my own and it obviously occured to me that if I had dishonourable motives I could have kept any issues I found to myself ...

bonkey

Originally posted by ecksor
anybody know where to find out what they are?

Nope, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by the summary at the back which has a number of previously raised issues "closed until post-June 2004".

Going back a few pages, we see that some of these issues which are to be left alone till after June are trifling matters like :

1) DB not encrypted, although it is password protected. The doc notes that there are tools to get around Access passwords - encryption is whats needed.

2) No primary keys on any of the tables.

3) No referential integrity between tables

(These last two beggar belief for me - I know of no self-respecting developer who would design a databaese without these. There are cases where either may not be practical, but seriously.....)

Some other bugs listed included modules not indicating success or failure, etc. etc. etc. but these were said to have been addressed in later builds and were awaiting re-auditing

I should point out that this is based on the review of build 0111. I have no idea if thats the live build, or if the live build has a more up-to-date.

Finally, this looks to me like a code-review, not a proper system-test.

jc

ecksor

It was a code review. Testing should also be done, but I see plenty of merit in a good code review for this system. Maybe it was a good code review, but how will we ever know?

bonkey

Originally posted by ecksor
It was a code review.

Fair enough. In that case, it does what it says on the tin, and shows enough fundamental issues with the database design that I would have no hesitation in saying I don't trust the development.

If I was working for a commercial company, I wouldn't accept any system with a database designed like that.

I sure as sh1t would not let it go live with the DB design marked as an issue "to be addressed after go-live date" which is effectively what this is.

That really scares me. I mean, that *really* scares me.

jc

GeorgeBush

Electronic voting in the states has been shown to be unsecure. Arnie was NEVER elected ! The system was hacked.

Without any paper trails Irish polls will be simply be rigged.

Victor

I just had a whoa! moment.

Vote information can only be held for three months. The code will be released an expected 4 months after the election....

star gazer

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/02/24/story135660.html
'However, speaking afterwards, his spokesman said the Minister had no plans to introduce a verifiable paper trail.'
this is after the big cabinet meeting today, it looks like they are ploughing ahead regardless, this is incredible, I can't believe that they are still doing this regardless of public opinion, never mind opposition and media opinion. You have to give Martin Cullen his due he is one determined Minister.

bonkey

Originally posted by star gazer
You have to give Martin Cullen his due he is one determined Minister.

I'll give him his dues that he understands exactly how politics works in this country : if you can tough it out, it is almost certainly not going to be remembered as an issue come the next election.

Come on....seriously....when's the last time you remember an issue more than 3 months old actually being a significant factor in an election? When did you see voters showing any massive swing away from a government because "you refused to listen to us last year on issue X".

jc

ecksor

Politically I wouldn't consider myself particularly well informed, but I don't actually understand how as a nation we voted back in a government that made us vote a second time on a referendum in an 18 month period.

monument

Originally posted by ecksor
Politically I wouldn't consider myself particularly well informed, but I don't actually understand how as a nation we voted back in a government that made us vote a second time on a referendum in an 18 month period.

Probably because of local issues.

projectmayhem

i have a major beef with the anti-e-voting lobby. why? well, because people fire emails accross the world to machines miles away. these emails could be worth millions to companies, but we trust it works. now we don't trust a machine that COUNTS numbers to do that job, yet you trust a calculator during a math exam? and about this "paper trail".. when exactly was there a paper trail when you put an x on a bit of paper last time? the previous method was liable to more error then this one.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by project-mayhem
when exactly was there a paper trail when you put an x on a bit of paper last time?

Nominated for funniest post of the year

oscarBravo

Seriously though.

Originally posted by project-mayhem
i have a major beef with the anti-e-voting lobby. why? well, because people fire emails accross the world to machines miles away. these emails could be worth millions to companies, but we trust it works.

Any company I've worked for never trusted millions to emails. If it's that important, you make a phone call. At the very least, you request a delivery receipt (or, of course, a reply from the recipient...)

now we don't trust a machine that COUNTS numbers to do that job, yet you trust a calculator during a math exam?

There's a wee difference in importance (and stakes) between a maths exam and an election. How much is it worth to anyone to have you fail an exam? How much could it be worth to someone to have the "right" government in power?

and about this "paper trail".. when exactly was there a paper trail when you put an x on a bit of paper last time? the previous method was liable to more error then this one.

In the previous method, I knew that when I folded a piece of paper and placed it in a box, there were systems in place to make sure it got counted. Now I have no way of knowing it went in the box in the first place.

I've been programming computers since 1981. I categorically don't trust computers. I rely on them, I use them all day every day. I don't trust them.

bonkey

Originally posted by project-mayhem
i have a major beef with the anti-e-voting lobby. why? well, because people fire emails accross the world to machines miles away. these emails could be worth millions to companies, but we trust it works.

Actually, most people who know anything about internet security will tell you that they most categorically do not trust that it works, unless you have a very-well designed system which takes every possible caution to verify both sender and recipient.

In fact, for serious security, you meet in person in advance and physically exchange public encryption keys (or hashes of keys) that you are going to use electronically. Also, any valuable communication should always be independantly verified through a seperate medium - typically a phone- or fax- communication where a voice or signature will be recognised.

Anything less is not trustworthy....and companies or individuals choosing to risk their fortunes on an insecure system - as some undoubtedly do for whatever reason - is no reason to risk a democracy on one.

now we don't trust a machine that COUNTS numbers to do that job, yet you trust a calculator during a math exam?

No, we don't trust machines to accurately count anonymous votes (i.e. with no verification of "sender" by the recipient, and no verification of the receipt for the sender).

We don't trust that the system has been sufficiently tested nor certified. All calculators that I've ever used have been certified to an IEEE-mandated level of accuracy, and these are tests I can perform myself should I so wish.

and about this "paper trail".. when exactly was there a paper trail when you put an x on a bit of paper last time? the previous method was liable to more error then this one.

No, it was liable to different types of error, but the major risks within that were all to do with count-errors. It is far harder to accidentally lose/create/duplicate thousands of votes, irreversibly cause a miscount, etc. etc. with the paper-based system. Oh - and its possible for you - the voter - to sit there and verify the system by making sure your vote box is not tampered with during the day, is counted, has its count accurately reported etc. You stil have to have a degree of faith in the counting process, but thats also scrutinisable.

None of this voter-verification is possible under the new system, which is the root-cause of the problem.

jc

dahamsta

Originally posted by project-mayhem
i have a major beef with the anti-e-voting lobby. why? well, because people fire emails accross the world to machines miles away. these emails could be worth millions to companies, but we trust it works.

That's like saying "I can watch television in my house because you can watch television in your house". Which of course is true. If you have a television.

adam

gandalf

Lads that is some seriously good stuff up there. After reading it I am now convinced that rather than march in demonstration to George Jr's visit we should be out in the streets demanding that proper safeguards are put in place to protect our democracy.

As the majority have said here I have no issues with the introduction of Electronic voting (apart from the pantomime side of things which I will miss!) as long as there is a audit trail and that their is provable, well documented and extensive testing of the system.

I think alot of the people who are saying that electronic voting as per the current spec from the Government is a good idea do not hold the proper respect of the right to vote in a free and democratic election. While the current government may not abuse the system the basic fact is we have no guarantee that this will not take place as there is not way of verifying the results.

Gandalf.

Sparks

Well, the commission's members have been announced:

The Cabinet decided at its weekly meeting that the new body, headed by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Matthew P. Smith, will be able to hire as much technical expertise as it needs before giving a verdict before May 1st on the security and accuracy of the voting machines.

The other members of the Electronic Voting and Counting Commission are Mr Kieran Coughlan, clerk of the Dáil; Ms Deirdre Lane, clerk of the Seanad; Mr Danny O'Hare, the former head of Dublin City University; and Mr Brian Sweeney, chairman and former chief executive of Siemens Ireland.

The Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, and the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, who are usually chosen to join such inquiries, were both excluded, although the Government insists this had nothing to do with queries both have raised about electronic voting.

So basicly, a committee of political appointees who are not qualified to make a technical judgement on a computer system, which is exactly what they're being asked to do - and none of them can make any claim on independence.

Feckin' typical....

Of course, that's an unacceptable viewpoint....
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/03/03/story136734.html

Environment Minister, Martin Cullen, has criticised opposition parties for questioning the integrity of the body established by the Government yesterday to examine the electronic voting system.

Mr Cullen said today that the independent body should be allowed to get on with its work without interference.

He said politicians must refrain from commenting until the body had completed its work.

The Government has promised to postpone its electronic voting plans if the body highlights concerns about the reliability of the system.

ReefBreak

My first post on electronic voting. I thought it was a mountain-out-a-molehill issue, as I know there are other countries that use electronic voting without a problem (France, for example?). Bunch o' luddites I thought, looking for something to complain about.

...Until I found out last night that (apparently) the votes are stored on an MS Access database? Holy Shít. I've been a database developer for 8 years, and I know what use MS Access is for a enterprise-wide/mission critical applications. I wouldn't store my CD collection on it, let alone the votes of the Irish electorate. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit...but for anything above storing the records of (say) a small business, it's to be avoided like the plague.

bonkey

I've been a database developer for 8 years, and I know what use MS Access is for a enterprise-wide/mission critical applications.

As I've pointed out before, MS Access relies on teh Jet engine, which is also the underlying technology behind MS Exchange Server.

There are no shortage of companies willing to trust enterprise-wide / mission critical applications to the same tech as is used in MS Access....

I know this doesn't make it a good choice, but it does hint that you're making the wrong argument against it....

Whats more relevant is that in the audit of the system that Victor provided a link to some time back, it was pointed out that there were no primary keys and no foreign key relationships (well, the latter is impossible without the former anyway).

Add in the fact that while the database is password-protected, it is not encrypted....and there are tools and techniques available to bypass the passwords. Not damning on its own, but far from ideal.

Couple those facts with the fact that MS Access is not the best possible choice (which is pretty uncontestable - MS SQL desktop edition would be better for a start, even if you were bound to remain with MS), and you start to see a frightening pattern which says that there must be serious doubts about the reliability of the design....let alone about the implementation.

I guess what I'm saying is that we shouldn't get too frothy-mouthed bitching about the choice of MS Access. For what its intended to do here, its not an unforgiveable choice....but when you factor all the other database "I can't believe"-isms in.....yeah. Scary.

jc