[ubuntu-za] eVotes for 2014

LordFoom lordfoom at gmail.com
Tue Apr 28 10:43:20 BST 2009


How do you ensure voters are uniquely identified and are voting as
themselves? Or that tallies aren't manipulated?

In my opinion a paper trail is still crucial - view the Dieboldt
fiasco. E-voting is a subtler problem than it may appear at first.

"Ok, now I hear all sorts of people asking me if I have never heard of
computer crime, hacking, hardware crashes, viruses and all those other
things that make computers so unreliable.
Sure I have, but by the time the next elections come round, those
problems will surely be a thing of the past?"

That made me laugh. Loudly. For a while.

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Dr. Johan P. Prinsloo
<biocura at telkomsa.net> wrote:
> Surely Linux is best equipped for this task in terms of stability,
> safety, etc? Perhaps this is a place where Ubuntu can really establish
> itself, particulalry seeing that it is a South African who started it,
> it's open source, etc, etc, etc. Perhaps Mark Schuttleworth would be
> interested in offering Ubuntu services for something like this.
> Johan
>
> http://www.news24.com/News24/Columnists/Chris_Moerdyk/0,,2-1630-2224_2507892,00.html
> eVotes for 2014?
> 28/04/2009 08:55  - (SA)
> Chris Moerdyk
> Why on earth do we still elect governments by having purple ink slopped
> on our thumbs and putting a cross on a piece of paper?
> Just how low-tech can you get?
> Don't get me wrong, I just loved standing in the voting queue last week
> chatting to strangers as though they were long lost-friends. And I think
> that on the whole the IEC did an outstanding job on election day.
> But, I must say I felt really sorry for those people who had to hang
> about until three o'clock in the morning to wait for ballot papers that
> didn't pitch and especially for those who couldn't vote at all because
> of some low-tech glitch.
> And I hope those election officials who tried to quietly stuff a whole
> lot of pre-marked ballot papers in the box get stuck in jail for a long
> time.
> Surely though, the time has come to look at a better, more high-tech way
> of voting?
> Nowadays, there is fingerprint-recognition technology,
> eyeball-recognition technology, face-recognition technology and quite
> probably nose hair, big-toe and sphincter-muscle recognition technology
> as well.
> Swipe and vote
> So, with those new credit-card type ID whatits that we are supposed to
> be getting, some highly secret thingummybob could be loaded onto each
> card when we register to vote and then when we get to the polling booth
> instead of scanning our ID books as they did this time with their little
> zip-zip machines, they can just swipe our ID card that will show that we
> are legally registered to vote.
> Then we could go straight to the voting booth and instead of a piece of
> paper there would be a touch screen that would allow us simply to put
> our fingers on the party symbol or face of the leader and immediately a
> message and voice would come up saying: Hi Chris, you have just voted
> for the Unholy Alliance Party - if that's right press YES.
> If you want to change your mind, press I WANT TO CHANGE MY MIND and try
> again. Now, if you are absolutely, positively sure you want to vote for
> the Unholy Alliance Party, just press YES again and off you go."
> The digital vote would then go straight into a computer and the overall
> results would be made known immediately after all the polls had closed.
> Unreliable?
> Ok, now I hear all sorts of people asking me if I have never heard of
> computer crime, hacking, hardware crashes, viruses and all those other
> things that make computers so unreliable.
> Sure I have, but by the time the next elections come round, those
> problems will surely be a thing of the past?
> Maybe it can even be done so that we can vote online from our homes. Or
> from our cell phones? Let's face it; even these days absolutely
> everybody from the President to street urchins and very, very old
> grandmothers have cell phones.
> And forget about the argument that the majority of the citizens of our
> country don't know how to use computers. That's nonsense - just look how
> quickly those bank books disappeared and people took to using ATM's and
> bank cards. And just look at how quickly cell phones caught on. Those
> two things completely confounded critics who said poor, rural South
> Africans were not ready for technology.
> In fact, why not just adapt all those bank ATM's for a day to allow us
> to use them to vote.
> Convenience
> Just think how convenient that will be for a lot of political parties.
> They won't have to go to all that trouble to buy food parcels for voters
> and have street corner braais in order to encourage people to vote for
> them. They can just put a message on the ATM that says something like:
> "Thank you for voting for the Unholy Alliance Party, please remove your
> R100 cash reward from the ATM cash dispenser below."
> Seriously though, I reckon there has got to be a better way of voting
> that will stop election officials trying to slip a few hundred
> pre-market ballot papers into the box or from running short of papers
> and have everyone hanging about until the early hours.
> Not to mention the fact that people could vote from anywhere in the
> country and expats can even cast their vote from a street corner
> MongolBank ATM in Ulaanbataar.
> It just has to make sense.
> After all, we can do our banking, buy airlines tickets, gamble, order
> pizzas, buy electricity, pay all our accounts, talk to friends and
> family all over the world, read newspapers, pay our tax, download music
> and movies - all online.
> So, why can't we vote that way?
> Send your comments to Chris.
> Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of
> diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore
> their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24
> editors reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
> - News24
>
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