Now these guys really wanted to vote… that's dedication.
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Month: November 2004
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Some EU e-voting news
For a change from the US election fever, a couple of reports from Europe…
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France has been taking a softly, softly approach to e-voting. Most recently they've piloted a system (developed by EADS oddly enough) for use in professional elections.
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The E-POLL project has run a pilot in Italy and another is due in France soon. It's led by Siemens (where are the companies who know about voting in all these projects?!?!) and incredibly buzz-word compliant. I quote ” Its main concept is the re-engineering of the entire voting processes using cutting edge technologies such as wi-fi, intranet, smartcards, biometrics, and GPRS.” Great.
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Boing Boing on e-voting
Boing Boing has two good posts on voting problems in the US of A.
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Reader Brian Nicks had a bona fide error when voting with a DRE machine. And he even managed to snap the error with his phone camera and get a camera crew to film it. Nice. Link
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Another reader, Kent Brewster, had a rather disturbing time when he asked to vote on paper (as he is allowed to do). The post says it all but it sounds like people choosing to avoid the electronic systems are being given an intentionally hard time. Link
A whole pile of US e-voting experts have started blogging on the US election.
I think they'll have a busy few days. I don't think there will any better place to watch how the technology of the presidential election performs.
If I was deaf I'd probably be in Portsmouth by now.
Returning from a client meeting I was enjoying the pleasures of Clapham Junction. The electronic signs informed me that the first train would be to Chichester and the second was to my destination, Brighton.
Time passed… a train came and left while I was on the phone. Looking up I saw that the boards hadn't changed… the Chichester and Brighton trains were still up there looking rather late. You know how it goes:
14:28 Chichester expected 14:35
14:32 Brighton expected 14:38
Time 14:41
Then an announcement:
“Customers are advised to ignore the electronic information board as the information displayed is incorred. This is due to a software fault.”
The message is repeated several times over the next five minutes. So what exactly is the next train? Finally we're told it's one to Eastbourne… so I missed my train. Great.
The Eastbourne train pulls up, it's own electronic destination signs proudly showing “00 Victoria” – so where was it going? A voice echoes on the PA reasuring us of the destination. I step on in the hope that it really will stop at Haywards Heath so I can change.
If I hadn't heard any of the announcements then I would have been well and truly stuffed. If you're blind people notice and try to help, but at least you can hear announcements.
If you're deaf it's hard for the hearing to tell so you just look around and use your wits and hope there isn't a software fault.
Jason Kitcat 