Jason Kitcat

• 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)

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.

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!

• 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.

• Florida's new Governor Crist to replace touch-screen machines
  The Republican Governor of Florida looks like he will replace expensive touch-screens with optical vote scanners in a bid to clean up Florida's tarnished elections record. See below for an example… (Thanks to Rebecca Mercuri for the top)

• Why So Many Undervotes in Sarasota?
  Ed Felten has started a series of entries on his excellent blog about why ES&S iVotronic using areas had an undervote rate of 14% (compared to 2.5% for absentee voters). Sarasota, Florida is where 18,412 voters cast votes in other contest but not the congressional race. This is the kind of problem Gov Crist is trying to avoid.

• Committe on Standards in Public Life: Review of The Electoral Commission
  With the announcement of the e-voting pilots I haven't had time to digest this fully, but this looks to be a very useful and important contribution to electoral reform in the UK.

Today the government has announced the details of the May 2007 e-voting pilots. This is two months later than the timetable outlined in the Department for Constitutional Affair's prospectus document. Strangely the prospectus document for these pilots, with that timetable, has gone offline – so here's a copy for you to download.

Fewer pilots than before
In 2003 there were 14 authorities trialling remote e-voting and 4 using kiosks. This year there will be 5 authorities using remote e-voting and 6 doing e-counting. I see none using kiosk (DRE) type machines.

Same old turnout rubbish
Minister Bridget Prentice trotted out this ripe quote:

“More and more people, and particularly young people, are using the internet everyday. We need to see if we can use this to encourage people even more to participate in the democratic process.”

These statements have no basis in facts. 2003 pilots saw turnout drop, see my previous response to Prentice's soundbites here.

Press release
Additional information [PDF]
Lord Falconer's Written Statement

Learn more about e-voting at these great Open Rights Group events, all free!

Since the announcement of the 2007 e-voting pilots I've been working hard with many other people to ensure we are ready for whatever the pilots throw at voters. Mysteriously but wonderfully it turned out that we were all members of the Open Rights Group, an excellent campaigning organisation whose creation was very long overdue in the UK.

So under the friendly Open Rights Group umbrella we've organised three excellent, free e-voting events in February. There's a screening of “Hacking Democracy” with panel discussion, an activists' workshop and a great evening event with some of the best e-voting experts around. The events will all be at University College London. I'm looking forward to seeing many new and old faces there!

Go see the full details on the ORG blog

Right idea Bridget…

Imagine that instead of referring to postal voting our Elections Minister, Bridget Prentice was referring to electronic voting:

“Democracy is not only about having the choice to vote but also about having confidence in the integrity of the system […] These [postal voting] measures will improve security and introduce deterrents against fraud so that people have confidence that their vote will be cast and counted fairly.” (BBC News Online)

I would agree that confidence in the integrity of our elections is much more important than choice. So why the rush for e-voting?

US e-voting certifiers Ciber Labs barred

The film Hacking Democracy raised some serious doubts about the quality and independence of Ciber's testing of e-voting systems. The New York Times reports that the Federal Election Assistance Commission has temporarily barred Ciber from approving new machines since summer 2006. Disturbingly this news has only just emerged with details that Ciber's quality control and documentation was lacking.

Council of Europe meeting to review e-voting developments

I've not had a chance to read all the presentations but a fine bunch of European civil servants presented their countries' status regarding e-voting. The presentations are all online so should make interesting reading, the UK slides just confirm their dedication to the cause of pushing e-voting.

Tick, tock; tick, tock. That's the sound of 2007 fast approaching. What are the good elections people of the Department for Constitutional Affairs doing? I haven't the foggiest.

They haven't updated their website since 19th October. But the timetable they published in the prospectus for the 2007 pilots said that decisions would be made on applications by 7th December.

Speaking to the BBC, the minister responsible Bridget Prentice said that she would make a decision within a month or so of an interview broadcast 26th November. So this implied that that they were behind the published timetable but could still make an announcement in 2006. But it isn't to be.

The published timetable was already ridiculously tight but now with slips like this the time available for implementation is bordering on the insane. About the same as the previous e-voting pilots then!

2007 looks to be a rather interesting year for e-voting in the UK. A very Happy New Year to all!

• Italy: Both Chambers of the Italian Parliament have now ordered recounts
  Thanks for the tip Emanuele

• Bruce Schneier: Vote Early, Vote Often
  In another column for Wired News Schneier examines the problems of recounts where e-voting has been used, and the challenges of re-running an election instead.

• USA: With Some Electronic Voting Systems, Not All Votes Count
  The Electronic Privacy Information Centre provide a good summary of the e-voting situation over the pond.