Jason Kitcat

Just posted on the Open Rights Group website

On October 17th the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Electoral Commission officially announced a prospectus for electoral pilots in May 2007 … This announcement comes at a time when e-voting has been increasingly recognised around the world as a threat to democratic elections … There is easy immediate action we can take to stop pilots happening.

Read more…

• The Polling Place Photo Project
  Go to your polling place (in the USA) and take pictures of what voters experience. Upload it to the project site and you have a citizen-run project for documenting the US election system brilliant! It's kind of like a Flickr just for elections stuff. AIGA, the professional association for design, have launched this project which is nothing short of a super idea.

• Nedap Elections Systems
  This Dutch company makes the voting machines at the centre of controversy in The Netherlands and Ireland. The tone they use on this page is nothing short of incredible when compared with the double-speak and denials US vendors like Diebold use. For example “Is manipulation possible with the Nedap voting machine? Everything can be manipulated.” They also link to the group who found the flaws in the system. Very commendable.

• A Halloween cartoon about e-voting, with a personal message
  The Verified Voting Foundation reprinted an amusing “Foxtrot” cartoon about e-voting and Halloween. The penultimate panel strikes rather close to home: “Jason, most people don't care about this stuff.” How did they know it was me?!?!

It's getting so heated in the US that my usual low-key coverage of US issues is getting a touch more frenetic too.

• Wired News: Ohio Election Portends Trouble
  Reports released on problems experienced by an Ohio county for a May 2006 election highlight the huge problems possible in technologised elections. A key finding was that auditing the election proved to be very difficult to actually do. Reported by the excellent Kim Zetter.

• Voting Machines ProCon
  An excellent site which tries, in as balanced a manner possible, to present the argues for and against voting machines. A great resource and the NGO behind, ProCon.org it have put out some other excellent ProCon sites too.

• CNET News.com: Does e-voting need paper trails
  Fairly good article on the fight for a paper trail

• Time Magazine: Can This Machine Be Trusted?
  A solid but not quite excellent piece on e-voting troubles.

• Rolling Stone: Will The Next Election Be Hacked?
  Robert F Kennedy Jr presents a comprehensively damning view of e-voting problems in the U.S. Also worth reading at the end are the letter from Diebold and Kennedy Jr's response. (via Paper Vote Canada)

• Toronto Star: Time To Cast A Vote Agains E-Voting
  A leading Canadian academic, Dr Michael Geist, argues against the introduction of e-voting in Ontario. Worth reading the comments as an administrator involved in a 2003 Internet voting pilot responds. (Thanks to techmocratie.org)

• Leeches for Sale
  An interesting 2002 e-voting debate on the RISKS list between Andy Neff (of VoteHere) and Rebecca Mercuri.

• Computerized Election Fraud in America: A Brief History
  I recently came across the VoteScam website and it makes some very interesting allegations, some of which corroborate with other sources I've heard. This article is a good introduction – I've ordered the book and will let you know if it's any good.

I've just heard that Camden Council have confirmed that they have no current plans for e-voting and have ruled out participating in the 2007 pilots. Hurrah!

Confirmation of this policy was thanks to somebody contacting their councillor through WriteToThem. As I blogged previously, it really does work – just ask a councillor to make sure your local authority doesn't do e-voting.

UPDATE: Ian Brown, the super person who wrote to their councillor, has blogged more details

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Earlier in October I reported on how Dutch campaigners had found gaping holes in Nedap voting machines. Nedap machines are the predominant systems used in Dutch elections but also used as machines from SDU.

Today the campaign group “We do not trust voting computers” heard in a letter from the Minister for Government Reform and Kingdom Relations [PDF in Dutch] that 1,200 SDU machines cannot be used in upcoming elections. The primary reason given was that the SDU machines were vulnerable due to the electromagnetic signals they emit. The letter also states that Nedap machines can be trusted, although actions will be taken to reduce the radio signals they emit.

It looks like there will be a debate on the matter in the Dutch parliament tomorrow. The campaign group may also sue the government over the Nedap machines. In the meantime 35 municipalities will definitely be using pencil and paper, ensuring security and privacy for their voters.

UPDATE: The International Herald Tribune has an AP piece on the news

UPDATE 2: The Dutch Intelligence and Security Service confirmed the campaign group's findings. The result was that all SDU machines and one type of Nedap machine were withdrawn for the November elections whilst the remaining 8,000 machines were adjusted. An independent commission is being formed to study e-voting in December.

(Once again thank you to Anne-Marie Oostveen for keeping me posted)

Quebec City, where the report was announced

Almost exactly a year ago, I reported on the problems and uncertain results of the Quebec municipal elections. Problems included 45,000 votes being counted twice and results having to be modified in some districts and changing the winner of one contest. It was a slow, messy and controversial mess with the losing candidate for Montreal mayor calling for the results to be cancelled.

Michel Monette of e-democracy blog techmocratie.org emailed me to let me know about what has happened since (Thanks Michel!).

Quebec’s chief electoral officer, Marcel Blanchet, has delivered a scathing report on the election with the result that an e-voting moratorium will remain in place indefinitely. Blanchet said that the systems “[do] not offer sufficient guarantees of transparency and security to ensure the integrity of the vote” and he could not be sure that the 2005 election results were accurate. His report found that:

• Electronic voting cost as much as 25% more than ‘regular voting’
• Machines misread ballots
• The lack of paper ballots prevented judicial recounts
• Poor management of voting systems (especially lack of security measures) left considerable room for errors, accidents and the absence or insufficiency of solutions in case of problems
• Absence of technical specifications, norms and standards that would have guaranteed the quality and the security of the voting systems used
• Machines were only partially tested in places
• Election personnel were not adequately trained
• There were no independent experts on electronic voting to whom returning officers could turn

These findings are important and relevant to all countries looking at electronic voting.

The Chief Electoral Officer also set out strict guidelines for use if e-voting were ever to return. These guidelines included mandating that all source code should be made available to ‘competent authorities’. He also slipped in the ruling out of using all-postal or even widespread postal ballots in Quebec.

So, for now, e-voting has been stopped in Quebec. Are the lessons starting to be learnt?

Sources:

• The Gazette

• Elections Quebec Press Release:
  Evaluation Report of the New Methods of Voting 1

• Elections Quebec Press Release:
  Evaluation Report of the New Methods of Voting 2

• How to steal an election by hacking the vote
  Ars Tecnica have published an excellent, very approachable introductory guide to the massive flaws with DRE type e-voting machines. Includes illustrations and a solid set of links for further reading. (Thank you to John Hornbaker for bringing this to my attention)

• Avi Rubin's blog
  This is an overdue link, Dr Avi Rubin's blog is full of good sense, as would be expected.

• A Brief Illustrated History of Voting
  It's brief, and it's illustrated. The ever-wise Doug Jones has written this wonderful short history of voting's evolution from clay shards to e-voting.

I recently linked to a video called 'Votergate', a rather good 35 minute piece on the huge problems with e-voting in the US. You can watch Votergate now, but it's just a small tease compared to what the filmmakers have now produced after three and a half years of work.

'Hacking Democracy' is an 80 minute documentary film which completely lifts the lid on the corruption, fraud and ignorance surrounding e-voting in the US. Included in the film is an on-camera successful exploit of a certified e-voting machine. While for those who have followed the US developments in details, there may be few surprises, for most viewers the impact of seeing this stuff on film is going to be huge.

This film has good pedigree, one of the co-directors has produced items on e-voting for Channel 4 news and the film includes interviews with respected experts such as Avi Rubin and David Dill. Nevertheless the core of the story, without a doubt, is Bev Harris' extraordinary activism and while I haven't seen the entire film yet, I think this approach is going to humanise this technical issue very effectively.

HBO have picked up the film and will be showing on their channel before the November 7th elections in the US, a hugely political move. The film will also be shown at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.

Where to see it

USA – HBO November 2nd, 9pm (link includes more about the film)

UK – Sheffield Documentary Festival (link also includes more about the film)
31st Oct 20.30 & 4th Nov 9.30 (co-directors Russ Michaels and Simon Ardizzone will attend this second screening)

We are working on a London screening…

UPDATE: London screening will be 6th Feb 07