Month: March 2009

Categories
notes from JK

More questions on waste and bins

Does our system of local democracy work? Are we able to get the best out of our local government with the current arrangements? I'm not sure.

A curent case study is the new communal bin system introduce here in Brighton & Hove. Views on these bins vary widely but from residents meetings I've attended I would say about a third are fundamentally opposed to the bins, another third might be open to the bins but not as they have been implemented with the remaining third either positively welcoming or unfussed by them.

There have been lots of bumps on the path of the Conservative's attempts to introduce the bins. First they tried to impose them without consultation but opposition parties forced them to consult. The siting of the bins was fraught and there's been no clear process for adjudication differences over bin locations (I did ask for one but the administration refused). The bins introduced have also been different to the ones trialled and shown in publicity – the new ones do not have foot pedals which made the trial ones fairly easy to use for people with a wide range of mobility levels.

I've been pursuing this matter for a while now… You can review the questions and answers from the January 2009 council meeting. Below are the video clips from my latest questions to the Conservative Cabinet member responsible, Cllr Geoffrey Theobald (split into two parts due to YouTube's 10 minute per clip limit). The required context is provided by the written questions and answers from page 7 of the meeting addendum

I think the answers (or more precisely the lack of them) speak for themself. It's telling how much time Cllr Theobald and his colleague Cllr Brian Oxley trying to persuade me that a Council meeting isn't the right place to challenge these kinds of issues. I absolutely disagree. The council chamber with all the councillors present is exactly where we should hold Cabinet members to account.

That said despite asking the questions in the council chamber I don't believe I got the answers residents deserved. But by having the debate in public forum they will be able to draw their own conclusions from what they see.

Categories
technology

Ada Lovelace Day: Women in Technology

Today is Ada Lovelace Day and I pledged to write a blog post on women in technology. So here we are..

It's easy for me to offer examples of women in technology as, for some reason I don't understand, there are plenty of women involved in (mostly opposing) electronic voting. Here are some of the leading lights in no particular order, I apologise in advance for any omissions:

  • Rebecca Mercuri: One of the first people to study electronic voting in computer science terms. Her PhD was on e-voting and she's been a vocal opponent ever since.

  • Barbara Simons: President of the ACM for two years, a former IBM researcher she is an influential critic of electronic voting and was a co-author of the SERVE report which stopped the US government pursuing Internet voting.

  • Margaret McGaley: One of the key activists against e-voting in Ireland and recently completed a Computer Science PhD on electronic voting.

  • Bev Harris: A leading force behind the BlackBoxVoting activist group in the US, a key player in the Diebold security scandals and lead character in the documentary “Hacking Democracy”.

  • Becky Hogge: Becky was until this January the Executive Director of the Open Rights Group and so played a critical role in the past two years of their campaigning against electronic voting.

  • Louise Ferguson: Louise is a leading usability expert who has played a major role in opposition to e-voting in the UK. She has also contributed to work on both sides of the Atlantic in improving the usability of the voting process. She also chaired the Open Rights Group through much of its e-voting campaign.

  • Lorrie Faith Cranor: Lorrie was an early researcher of e-voting who over time has become more critical of the technologies. Her early work on 'Sensus', an e-voting system, was pioneering at the time and probably informed her subsequent caution.

Of course none of these one liners do justice to these women, but by flagging them up here I hope to emphasise the huge role women can and do play in technology.

Ada Lovelace was an extraordinary woman and widely considered the first programmer, more on her life at Wikipedia

Categories
notes from JK

Discussing maternity care on Radio Reverb

I was delighted to be invited onto Radio Reverb’s “The Tea Room” programme this past Wednesday to discuss maternity care. Since my daughter was born three years ago I’ve had a strong interest in maternity services, I read a huge amount around the subject in the run up to her birth.

Now being on the Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee I get the opportunity to take this interest a bit further, and a recent report on services to the committee made for interesting reading. I press released the finding that 94% of women weren’t being cared for in labour by a midwife they had previously met, an experience we too had. Continuity of care is so important so I hope the proposed changes to remedy this situation come forward soon.

You can listen to my section of “The Tea Room” online here. (29MB MP4 file)

Radio Reverb is a wonderful community resource so do listen in. Thanks to Tea Room presenter Jo Rickhards for the invitation to participate.

Categories
voting

Germany rejects e-voting while Geneva ploughs on

I received two contrasting emails today. The first was Geneva's Chancellerie d'Etat confirming that a citizen referendum has approved the permanent use of Internet voting with a 70% majority. The email goes on to report that other Swiss cantons are also looking at adopting the technology sigh.

But don't worry, Germany brings good news. Ulrich Wiesner and his dad took the law permitting voting machines to the constitutional court, and won. Ulrich presented his work on this at ORG's February 2007 e-voting workshop (PowerPoint slides) but the details on the court result aren't available online in English yet. Rop Gonggrijp (Dutch e-voting activist), summarised the result as:

Today the court ruled that the German “Bundeswahlgeraeteverordnung”,
the law that deals with voting machines, is unconstitutional and void.
Much more importantly, they gave German citizens the constitutional
right to see al phases of the voting process (in its entirety) happen
before their very eyes. They strongly rejected the notion that
'delegated trust' can ever be a replacement for trust that comes from
(the possibility of) direct observation or that observers can be
required to posess any kind of specialised technical knowledge.

Whilst the ruling is specific to the German constitution it's yet another country turning away from e-voting. What will it take for the British government to rule out e-voting for the foreseeable future?

The judgement in German: http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/cs20090303_2bvc000307.html
Very rough translation: http://bit.ly/MISi

UPDATE: Official press release from the court, in English, thanks to Ulrich Wiesner for the pointer.