Month: February 2007

Categories
voting

Sir Alistair Graham calls for e-voting pilots to be halted

Today, at the Association of Electoral Administrators conference in Brighton, Sir Alistair Graham, chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has publicly called for the 2007 electoral pilots in the UK to be halted. The Committee recently published their eleventh report which called for major reform of the Electoral Commission and our electoral system, particularly with regard to preventing fraud.

This is a major development – it’s the first time an establishment voice has called for the halt of e-voting pilots. The speech couldn’t be better, Sir Alistair makes every point I would have wanted to, he even notes that the government has been extremely misleading in their use of some figures from Northern Ireland. I’m so pleased!

Sir Alistair and the minister Bridget Prentice MP were on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Prentice absolutely refused to accept anything Sir Alistair had to say.

Some choice quotes from the text online, delivery may have been different, but really read the whole thing as it’s all SO GOOD:

“Electoral fraud is not a trivial matter. It is an affront to the democratic principle of one-person one vote. Left unchecked it will eventually undermine trust and confidence in the democratic process and by implication the electorate’s consent to the outcome of elections.

…

“I should like to put this question to you. How does DCA or the Electoral Commission know about the extent of electoral fraud when neither of them have kept any statistics nor have undertaken any research on the issue? Is it that, in their obsession with increasing participation at all costs, they have turned a blind eye to the risks of electoral fraud and its consequences on the integrity of our democratic system?

…

“The current systems to combat electoral abuse in Great Britain are unsatisfactory already, so to proceed with these pilot schemes, appears ill-timed and betrays confusion over priorities. Unfortunately it appears to come down to the obsession with modernisation as a means of increasing participation at elections.

…

“In any event the primary responsibility for increasing participation at elections rests squarely with the political parties. Deep-seated voter disengagement will not be solved by tinkering with the mechanics of the electoral system.

…

“So in relation to the elections this May I am calling for the pilots to be put on hold. It is a matter of serious concern that we are experimenting with insecure methods of voting when the current registration and absent voting procedures are so insecure. In relation to the checking of absent votes in May there should be a guarantee of 100% checking.

…

“As the integrity of the electoral system in Great Britain is being damaged through increased incidents and perception of electoral fraud why are we not replicating the measures used successfully in Northern Ireland in Great Britain too?”

Full text of the speech (thanks Glyn)

UPDATE:

Links to news coverage…

BBC News Polling experiments ‘high risk’

Yorkshire Post Why ringing the electoral changes failed to dent voter apathy

thisislondon.co.uk Dump e-voting to stop fraud, Labour warned

24dash.com ‘Modern’ voting offers opportunities for fraud

Categories
voting

Electoral Commission letter to Lord Falconer

It is to the Electoral Commission's great credit that they have published a letter they wrote to Lord Falconer, the minister in charge of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The letter details the Commission's response to the applications made by local authorities to run electoral pilots in May 2007. It makes for very interesting reading, here are some highlights:

  • The Commission feels that many applications lacked detail and that short timescales also prevented the Commission from assessing the applications in detail.

  • Due to insufficient detail, probably due the procurement timetable preventing authorities knowing which suppliers they could use, the Commission could not support any of the e-counting pilot proposals – yet six were approved by DCA.

  • Several of the e-voting pilot applications 'demonstrate insufficient understanding of the important security issues relating to electronic voting'.

  • Three applications, from Rushmoor, Sheffield and Swindon, showed 'effective project management and risk analysis'. These three have done e-voting before, the commission felt that the other four applications did 'not provide enough evidence to give us the confidence that the potentially significant risks involved in the schemes would be managed appropriately.' So the commission couldn't support the applications as proposed. Nevertheless Shrewsbury & Atcham and South Bucks were both approved by DCA to run e-voting pilots in addition to the three the Commission had supported.

Finally:

It was also of considerable concern to us that a large number of the applications were not able to demonstrate broad cross-party support for the proposed schemes. It will be absolutely essential to clarify the true level of local support before approving any of these applications, to ensure that risks to the successful delivery of the schemes are minimised. In particular, we are concerned that the administrative aspects of the election process should not become an issue of dispute in the election itself.

I know of at least one council that does not have cross-party support for e-voting which nevertheless was approved to run a pilot.

Categories
voting

Research shows voters want security and privacy over convenience

Opinion research done by BMRB for the Electoral Commission concerning attitudes surrounding the 2006 electoral pilots makes for interesting reading. The top reason for people possibly choosing not to vote in a pre-election survey: ‘disillusionment with politics, parties or the party system’. Post-election research showed that:

Although, practical reasons for non-voting were given in some instances, such as being out of town, working late or being ill on polling day, they were usually said to work in tandem with other barriers, such as political disillusionment, and were not usually seen as sufficient to act as a barrier on their own. Furthermore, practical barriers were not thought to have a prolonged impact on voting behaviour, that is, they did not result in persistent non-voting over a number of elections.

Three key barriers to voting were highlighted as:

  • Lack of political understanding and knowledge;
  • Disillusionment and scepticism of contemporary politics
  • Party stronghold (thinking the result is a a dead cert).

So again Electoral Commission research shows that overall, while people do cite practical difficulties as part of the reason why they don’t vote, there are deeper reasons that stop people from voting and so technical quick-fixes like e-voting are not going to make a significant difference to e-voting.

It’s interesting to look back to section 9.3 of a 2002 BMRB report for the Department for Transport, Local Government & Regions on e-voting where turnout was discussed:

The implementation of electronic voting was felt to have a limited influence in connection with increasing turnout. In a small number of cases non-voters felt that the idea that electronic voting would increase turnout was insulting.

‘Surely, they’ve only got to look at themselves to say “hey, maybe it’s me”. They don’t think it’s them. They just think it’s because we’re too lazy to go and vote.’

Government sponsored reports, let alone others from people like myself, have been saying for years that e-voting won’t boost turnout significantly. They knew it in 2002, in 2006 and now.

The 2006 report also has an interesting chart that shows the priorities of public opinion (as sampled) for the voting process. Top priority was voting being secret (29%) and second was their vote being safe from fraud or abuse (26%). Then came choice of voting methods followed by convenience at 16% each then ease of voting (10%). So the top two priorities outweigh the next three by a 13% margin. From 2003 to 2006 the proportion of people who would prefer to vote from a polling station has risen 54.5% from 33% (2003) to 51% (2006). Furthermore 97% of voters in May 2006 rated polling station voting as easy to do, 97% rated polling station voting as convenient and 96% rated polling station privacy as good. It doesn’t sound like people are clamoring for methods of voting that replace the polling station at the risk of election integrity.

Indeed 43% of respondents to a pre-election 2006 survey felt that postal voting was unsafe. After the local elections 24% felt that electoral fraud had been a very or fairly big problem. 51% said fraud hadn’t been a problem and 21% didn’t know. This is extraordinary – a quarter of respondents felt that electoral fraud had been a major problem, that’s a huge chunk of people with little faith in the accuracy of our electoral system.

There’s no doubt about it, the public want vote secrecy and security ahead of convenience. Yet the 2007 pilots appear to reverse those priorities risking the secrecy and security for a bit more convenience – why and for who?

The full 2006 BMRB report

A summary of the 2006 report

The full 2002 BMRB report

Categories
voting

Estonia takes the Internet voting national election medal

The other competitors have fallen by the wayside leaving Estonia to take the medal when they cross the finishing line with their March 4th elections. These elections will be the world’s first national parliamentary elections conducted with an Internet voting channel. Their rush to implement this technology is driven by a desire to create positive press around the technological advancement of Estonia to attract inward investment. I can see no other reason expressed in the reports to justify this rapid introduction.

 

My previous analysis of the Estonian system showed that it wasn’t too bad and they’d been admirably open compared to other countries implementing e-voting. Nevertheless there are weaknesses in the system which could be manipulated by insiders and voters can’t be sure their votes are stored and counted as intended.

 

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will be sending a mission to observe the Estonian elections but do “…not intend to carry out a systematic or comprehensive observation of the voting, counting and tabulation on election day.” Of course observing a computer in a server room isn’t go to do much good anyway. I wonder what the Estonian candidates think?

 

CNET News.com report
Monsters & Critics report

 

Categories
voting

Links: 12-02-2007

  • Simon Hoggart on e-voting
    Simon's Saturday column includes 2 paragraphs on Rebecca Mercuri's visit to London last week.

  • A conversation with Douglas W. Jones and Peter G. Neumann
    Two of the most prominent and experienced academic voices on voting technology discuss the issues for ACM Queue.

  • Do Politics Centre
    An interesting new site from The Electoral Commision which provides tools and case studies to help local authorities encourage democratic participation. Great idea with a lovely clean design.

  • Election Pilots May 2007
    The Electoral Commission have now put online their own page about this year's e-voting pilots.

Categories
e-democ / e-gov

e-democracy is not direct democracy

The e-petition against road use charging in the UK has been in the news as it breaks the 1 million signature mark.

Coverage from The Times is particularly misleading:

An experiment in internet democracy, in which people were invited to place petitions on the No 10 website and vote for them by e-mail, has embarrassed ministers.

Internet democracy means nothing to me. I wonder whether it's fair to call the Number 10 e-petitions system an experiment as all it does is bring online an existing tradition of handing in petitions to the Prime Minister. Claiming that the petitions are voted for by email subtly misrepresents the site making it sound more Fame Academy and less like clipboards in the high-street type petitions. The MySociety team responsible say it better on the e-petitions FAQ:

One of the most popular proposals has been the creation of a 'sign against' mechanism, which would allow users to disagree with petitions. After much discussion, we have decided not to add this function.

The rationale is this: “e-petitions” is designed essentially as a modern equivalent of the traditional petitions presented at the door of No.10. It enables people to put their views to the Prime Minister. It is not intended to be a form of quasi-referendum or unrepresentative opinion poll (professional polls use special techniques to ensure balanced samples). With a “vote against” function, that is what it would effectively become.

Tracking vehicles to charge them is a pretty hare-brained idea unlikely to be implemented successfully by government. It also strikes me as pointless as road use is already charged for through fuel tax. Without delivering green, affordable, reliable transport alternatives first pricing people off the road seem pointless.

Whatever the merits of the petition's case, 1 million signatures do not miraculously have the power to swing policy. They merely record that 1.6% of our population disagree with how the policy was portrayed by those promoting the petition. Of course this is more than most petitions ever receive, yet still it's a tiny proportion of our peoples.

Naturally the government needs to weigh up the political implications of the mobilisation of feeling those signatures represent. The e-democracy tools enabled people to sign up to the petition quickly and easily. It would have been much harder to achieve so many signatures offline. In fact, rightly or wrongly, I would wager that the government would see more weight in 1 million signatures collected traditionally than online.

Part of the problem lies in expectations. I saw an email promoting the petition which claimed that the government would be legally forced to drop the policy if 750,000 signatures were received. The petitions are not legally binding in any way at all – the government isn't even obliged to respond to them. But if citizens build up hopes and expectations beyond reality then they are setting themselves up for disappointment and possibly will become less likely to participate in the future.

I would hate a great system like the e-petitions site end up unintentionally switching people off democratic participation. Campaigning organisations need to be responsible about the expectations and hope they express when asking for help. We can't count on that though, so the e-petitions site needs to be clearer that e-democracy isn't direct democracy.

Categories
voting

Links: 9-02-2007

  • Getting out the vote
    Wendy Grossman's column for this week covers some e-voting action in the US and our very own ORG/FIPR e-voting events from this past week.

  • Would you trust me to vote for you?
    David Chisnall writes about how e-voting shifts trust to the few with technical skills, and even then it's an uncertain thing.

  • Florida to Shift Voting System With Paper Trail
    Confirmation that Florida's new Republic Governor… yes Republican, is getting rid of the state's touchscreen systems. This isn't a party political issue, all parties and all viewpoints are affected by election processes open to fraud and error. (via John Pugh)

  • Voting 2.0: Will your e-vote count?
    If you ignore the hyperbole of the opening paragraphs this is a very well researched article on the US e-voting 'situation'. The article covers a lot of ground and reminded me of how damning the 2005 General Accounting Office report had been. (via ORG)

Categories
voting

ORG/FIPR week of e-voting draws to a close

Thursday was an incredibly busy day as e-voting experts from around the world gathered to discuss the growth of e-voting systems.

Harri Hursti delivered a wonderful extemporaneous presentation on the vulnerabilities he'd demonstrated in US e-voting systems. Of particular interest to me were his experiments with printing optical scan ballots which could undetectably modify the result counted.

Every presentation was superb in fact – from France, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and United States. It was an incredible gathering of people who care passionately about the integrity of elections in their countries. They were inspiring lot even if the news they delivered was often deeply troubling.

I would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to everyone who came and the wonderful people at the Open Rights Group and the Foundation for Information Policy Research for helping this all happen with a budget extremely close to zero!

Soon slides, notes, audio and video from our week of events will be online on the ORG Website.

Categories
voting

ORG/FIPR week of e-voting frothing along

We're half-way through the Open Right Group/Foundation for Information Policy Research's week of e-voting events. Last night we had a screening of Hacking Democracy followed by an absolutely cracking panel with one of the film's directors, Russell Michaels, John Pugh MP (LibDem) and Dr Rebecca Mercuri. If you missed out, the panel discussion will be online shortly in full Technicolor video.

There's more to come though, tomorrow (Thursday 8th Feb), will see two more free ORG/FIPR events in London to discuss e-voting. The events are packed with expert speakers who have trekked from around the world to share their experiences. You can still sign up so visit the ORG e-voting events page now!

Categories
voting

Links: 4-02-2007

  • Prepare for election fraud
    A searing, important piece for The Sunday Times by Sir Alistair Graham, Chairman of The Committee on Standards in Public Life who recently reported on our electoral system. The report showed that since 2001, 342 cases of electoral malpractice have been referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service. (Thanks Ian)

  • Tower Hamlets postal voting fraud?
    Sir Graham refers to problems in Tower Hamlets, allegations which date back to 2006. The latest news implies that there could have been something happening, but nothing clear enough for the losing candidates to risk the cost of a trial. Still, the judge, Richard Mawrey, who famously tried the Birmingham election fraud case, was not happy with the conduct of postal ballot elections.

  • Why politicians and technology should never mix
    With such a title John Naughton's Observer column could have been about e-voting, but it isn't. A good read but I don't think politicians and technology should be kept apart, particularly given the huge role technology plays in our lives. It's just that so many of our current politicians are so ill informed and often frankly uninterested. Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth shows what could be.