21 countries use pencils

Heinrich

Should Bertie not simply say 21 out of the 25 countries are the laughing stock...? What a gluttonous nation we are for swallowing this sort of nonsense!

Would the 21 know what stupid ol' pencils means.

I can't remember who said it apropos the voting machines but the comment was "a bunch of monkeys behind a TV set with screwdrivers."

Then again, who believes that the software will ONLY COST a half of a million? Unless it is to be done in bargain basement Bombay.


Pinched this from the Indo letters page:

The Taoiseach has told the Dail that Ireland will the laughing stock of Europe if it doesn't introduce e-voting soon.

He said that "our silly old system is outdated," and that the use of "stupid ol' pencils" was not the norm in the 21st Century.

Mr Ahern is obviously not aware that 21 of the 25 countries in the European Union still use "stupid ol' pencils" to choose their elected representatives. They seem to do so without any controversy. And without, it seems, attracting ridicule from any quarter.

Mr Ahern's comments are less about a fear of being left behind by the rest of Europe, and more about trying, yet again, to vindicate possibly the single greatest example of Government incompetence in the last 10 years.

How many more times does he intend to insult the intelligence of voters?
SARAH MOORE,
KILMORE QUAY,
CO WEXFORD

Dave!

How many of the 25 countries are on the way to using electronic methods of voting, though? (Honest question, I don't actually know)

Heinrich

DaveMcG wrote:

How many of the 25 countries are on the way to using electronic methods of voting, though? (Honest question, I don't actually know)

The one to ask that is the laddie mentioned above! If it were a valid point I'm sure the Teflon® Taoiseach would have used it in his feeble argument.

Red Alert

e-Voting is very easy to do if you are like Milton Obote, you tell the machine the desired result which it remembers for the duration of the election, and then presto you've got it. totally foolproof

the government would be fools to throw it at us again in a subsequent election (this system anyway). the minister's assertion on prime-time last night that fake 'ballot papers' could be printed out from the system is useless - it would be as easy to manipulate them electronically before print as it would to do anything else to the count. likewise nobody was suggesting a receipt, most people want an inspectable printout dropped into a sealed 'ballot box'.

how long does an election count take anyway? not more than 1-2 days, the only issue is the sampled-PR which can create an inaccuracy. the obvious answer would be a move to optical-scan balloting in which the same papers can be checked manually. the technology for optical scanners has come on a lot in the past 5 years, it may be time to ditch this fisher-price voting system they bought from holland and build a new 'functional and secure' (quote from OpenBSD) voting system.

lostexpectation

are these ministers not aware of all the problems around the world with theses systems , did you see dempsey say, but if we had paper trails them when the person gets the result when they get outside people might demand to see the receipt as a way of threat.

now tell which proponent of vvat exactly suggested the paper receipt would leave the polling station?

mike65

The Dutch and the Aussies both use E-Votrig don't they?

Mike.

Zombrex

Maybe if the government is worried about looking technologically backward they should try improving the desperate state of the internet and broadband availability in this country. That is something the rest of Europe are actually laughing at.

Heinrich

mike65 wrote:

The Dutch and the Aussies both use E-Votrig don't they?

Mike.

What's your point? There are more significant nations who do not and we have more to do with them that we do with Australia!

The original issue is that our Teflon Taoiseach is saying foolish things in the Dail! Oul pencils...

constitutionus

mike65 wrote:

The Dutch and the Aussies both use E-Votrig don't they?

Mike.

not sure about the aussies but didnt the dutch recently show that the machines could be easely be interfered with, including the revelation that all the keys for all the machines are the same!. and that they actually broadcast on radio frequencys as well so theyre not even private.

seems to be a clear cut example of government arrogance here, they steadfastly refuse to admit they fecked up and all things being equal its tough to beat a pencil and a bit of paper in terms of security. hell even the states are getting worried about E voting

Zebra3

Bertie's not as stupid as some people think.

His comment about 'aul pencils' is him getting back to his man of the people act (ah sure isn't he one of us de way he talks :rolleyes: ) and to get people talking about him without mentioning his extremely generous rich friends.

Heinrich

Zebra3 wrote:

Bertie's not as stupid as some people think.

His comment about 'aul pencils' is him getting back to his man of the people act (ah sure isn't he one of us de way he talks :rolleyes: ) and to get people talking about him without mentioning his extremely generous rich friends.

Crafty yes, stupid yes! That man of the people is wearing thin at this stage.

mike65

Heinrich takle a chill pill eh? I was merely pointing out other countries do use such a system, not advocating it necessarily.

Mike.

Victor

The Australian system is open source, so anyone with the skills can check the software is secure.

The Dutch system is similar to ours. Ours also has identical locks.

Heinrich

mike65 wrote:

Heinrich takle a chill pill eh? I was merely pointing out other countries do use such a system, not advocating it necessarily.

Mike.

transylman

The only system that I would trust is one that prints two copies of your votes to paper like a cash register, one for yourself as a receipt and one for the vote counting. The paper results could then be optically scanned by two seperately developed sytems and if the disparity in the figures exceeded a certain percentage a hand recount would have to be done. The current system of pressing a button and having your votes go into a black box is completely unacceptable as far as I am concerned.

oscarBravo

transylman wrote:

The only system that I would trust is one that prints two copies of your votes to paper like a cash register, one for yourself as a receipt and one for the vote counting.

A system that lets you take proof of how you voted out of the polling station would not be acceptable.

transylman

Oh right, in case there was voter intimidation and the intimidators wanted to make sure you voted for their man.
Still, I'm sure there is a way of getting to see your vote in paper form before you leave, maybe a small window on the machine that displays the paper showing how you cast your votes.

oscarBravo

transylman wrote:

Oh right, in case there was voter intimidation and the intimidators wanted to make sure you voted for their man.

Correctamundo.

transylman wrote:

Still, I'm sure there is a way of getting to see your vote in paper form before you leave...

There is: the current system. It works. Leave it alone.

biko

Switzerland, a country that votes about 4 times a year still use ballots. Some cantons use Internet voting

bonkey

biko wrote:

Switzerland, a country that votes about 4 times a year still use ballots. Some cantons use Internet voting

I'm not sure if its just a trial, or will be continued, but the important thing to remember is that when they talk about having internet voting, they typically mean that its one of several ways to vote. Some places have SMS voting (!). All offer postal and in-person (I believe). Its up to the voter to decide how they wish to cast their vote. If you don't trust them noo-fangled compooters...then you don't use them....you use one of the more traditional methods.

The Swiss aim is primarily one of encouraging participation by facilitating it. They want it to be easy for everyone....give you the options and let you choose how to vote.

jc

Macker

Interesting take on e-voting from the daily show ,hold down ctrl if you are using a popup blocker

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=77118

Solair

The problem, as I see it, is that there is no particular demand from any section of Irish society for E-Voting.

People are generally quite happy with the electoral system / method of counting as it stands.

Also, speaking to politicans at the door step or hearing them speak on the radio / tv. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of political apetite for it either!!

I think Bertie's under pressure from the Public Accounts Committee to justify the spend.

These machines would be better off crushed, scrapped etc.

We need to put money into reforming the electoral registration system and perhaps towards looking at making sure that people can easily vote if they're not home etc.

Students etc can be quite substantially disinfranchised by the current system.

E-Voting machines are the last thing we needed.

Perhaps the machines could be put to use for public consultation processes?

e.g. we could have official polls on various minor issues using these machines.

Also, why do we use pencils?!

Surely the logical upgrade would be to pens!

philologos

would be cool if there was an electronic voting system that just required an internet browser to logon and vote with an ID and PIN like the way you get the JC and LC results online. Surely that could be done, and without the bother of having to purchase machines, well i suppose a couple of servers would have to be bought but thats it. Constituencies could be loaded and all the candidates could come up easily...

constitutionus

Solair wrote:

The problem, as I see it, is that there is no particular demand from any section of Irish society for E-Voting.

People are generally quite happy with the electoral system / method of counting as it stands.

bang on. lets be honest to joe public who doesnt participate on this forum politics is a deathly dull affair. one of the few joys we have as an electorate is to watch politicians sweat during the counting process whilst giving a forum in the media to actual debates on constituancy issues and the like. E voting would basically sweep all that aside cause the result would be in in minutes. look how quickly mary o rourke was sidelined when her results came out and the media focused on the races in other constituancies around her. christ knows RTE get enough money off us taxpayers, the least they can do is give good coverage on an election

solair wrote:

Perhaps the machines could be put to use for public consultation processes?

e.g. we could have official polls on various minor issues using these machines.

now thats a damn good idea. why not stick em in supermarkets up and down the country so people could be quized on relevant issues. it'd certainly be more representative than the polls that the newspapers carry out and would give us a far greater number of participants than the 1000 they usually go by.
i dont know if id want em used on a local government level but ive no objection to them being used as an indicator of public opinion. maybe if we'd done this we wouldnt have been so surprised by the citizenship referendum result:D

Victor

Jakkass wrote:

would be cool if there was an electronic voting system that just required an internet browser to logon and vote with an ID and PIN like the way you get the JC and LC results online.

They tried that for the Dutch waterboard elections. They got 110%* turnout.


* or somesuch number.

constitutionus

Victor wrote:

They tried that for the Dutch waterboard elections. They got 110%* turnout.


* or somesuch number.

didnt something similiar happen in the states where a stray cosmic ray (i kid you not!) made one of the machines give an extra million votes to one candidate?:D