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.
Author: Jason Kitcat
Director of Digital, Data & Technology at the UK's Department for Business & Trade. Passionate about tech for good & public service.
Email me on jason@jasonkitcat.com
Socials @jasonkitcat
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.
I've been working with online communities since I first started using and running bulletin board systems in 1993. We've come a long way since the days of dial-up, ASCII-based systems with bundles of modems screeching as callers tried to connect. Nowadays communities are far more accessible, powerful and easy to set up. Where before it was a thrill if there was one other person online with you, today thanks to instant messaging I can chat with hundreds of people at the same time. So, in spite of all the changes, I'm still building online communities for businesses, associations and non-profit groups.
A few conversations led me to realise that online communities is what I do every day. A few 'aha!' discussions later with my fellow directors and Swing Digital was being reformulated to make our new-found (old) focus clear. It's incredible to think that we've been going since 2000. We've built communities for extreme skiers, software users, alumni associations, political groups; and it's been great fun. So what do you want to build?
All that to say… we've got a new website: http://www.swingdigital.com
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Get image sizes with a click…
Now that's useful check out Dimensionizer a free plugin for MacOS X. It provides a contextual menu in the finder with an images dimensions… perfect!
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TV Politics
It seems to me that in the final days of the US election TV is still where it's at.
Last night I watched the special Question Time from Miami, Florida. On the panel was an odd collection of voices from a bombastic Michael Moore to The Sun's Richard Littlejohn. But boy was it fun to watch the crowd… it was like a pantomine, Republicans booed when anyone said that Europe or the world might prefer Kerry – talk about denial. It was fun watching though nothing new really came out if it.
There's another TV-centric story that does bring the Internet into view however. George W's 'wrinkled shirt' during the debates. Did he have a device on his back or not? It was the TV cameras who gave us the lead but it's the web pushing the story forward. The latest is Salon's report on an analysis by a NASA imaging specialist who is adamant that there was an electronic device on Bush's back. This is just such an odd story people can't help to want to know more… and it's the online sources that can do so quickly.
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Updated UK Gov Open Source policy
John Lettice in the Register has the lowdown. Basically this is an updated document which has hardly changed in any significant way. OSS remains a possibility but it's unlikely we'll see any new initiatives out of this policy.
The policy document [PDF]
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Let’s have a festival of voting
The Electoral Reform Society's Lewis Baston and Ken Ritchie have released an excellent report 'Turning out or turning off?' which examines the issues surrounding political disengagement, particularly as expressed through low voter turnout. It's a really great piece, easy to read, well informed and it covers all the main issues from compulsory voting to the role of the media.
They argue that e-voting should continue to be gently piloted but that the 2006 target for an electronic general election should abandoned. Hurrah!
The best idea in the report, in my view, is that major election days should be public holidays. Let's have a sense of occasion… marching bands, flag waving, fun fairs, fancy dress – the works. Then people will know that the election is happening, that it's important and that loads of people care because they're out there celebrating their vote.
As the report says…
Some have argued that in Britain we work too hard and should have more public holidays. If we are to move in this direction, surely there is a case for not more bank holidays but for elections holidays – a day off work giving people time to exercise their democratic rights.
Not only would this be fun… but we wouldn't need to create e-voting or postal voting systems for busy people, we could all relax and walk together to our polling station. Who's in?
The report can be downloaded from the ERS website [PDF]
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Florida, e-voting… the whole USA mess
First reports of e-voting problems have begun rolling in from Florida. The game is afoot and it won't be long before troubles are being found across the states. I won't be exhaustively posting to each news item in this blog. Others are doing it so well there's no point repeating the effort.
Check out: * Kim Alexander's Blog RSS feed * Louise Ferguson's Blog RSS feed
and you'll be set for the election.
I will, of course, post my thoughts and comments as big issues arise. It's sad because the US election already feels like watching a horrible car pile up you know is going to happen all in very slow motion.
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London to get e-voting?
The details are sketchy to say the least but Silicon.com is reporting that the Greater London Authority is looking to introduce e-voting for the mayoral elections in 2008 This would be a major leap from their current use of electronic counting of paper ballots. Silicon.com state that all channels are being considered (the Internet, telephone, mobile phone, text messaging, e-voting booths and digital TV). If a by-election or referendum popped up before 2008 then they might use the systems early. Lucky London.
The article notes that the counting contract alone cost £5m this year. That’s a lot of taxpayer cash for what?
Unfortunately a leader by Silicon.com raises some of the cost and security issues but argues that we will have to embrace e-voting. Why? Let me quote the final part of the leader in full:
But this is a technology which has to be embraced and the scepticism which surrounds all voting means we should be building in a fairly high tolerance to criticism threshold.
By 2008 the technology and the means of identity verification should be robust enough to guarantee a fairly flawless e-voting system.
We have to hope the knowledge and the implementation process also doesn’t let it down.
Because underpinning any e-voting rollout is the obvious fact it is a government IT project – and enough has been written in the past about the fact that is almost a by-word for ‘over budget, over time and flawed’.
So risking going over-budget with precious tax money is ok because we must embrace the technology? Hmmm. Perhaps by 2008 the major problems with e-voting will have been addressed. Perhaps. But the Greater London Authority is buying the voting systems this or next year so they will have yesterday’s technology tomorrow. Not good.
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Watching Tony Robbins
Jason Kitcat 