Transcript

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Colm MacCárthaighIrish Citizens for Trustworthy E-voting - www.evoting.cs.may.ie

E-mail: colm -at- allcosts.net

Before I begin

• Some photos are from www.ireland.com (and can be purchased there)

• Some photos are from www.electronicvoting.ie

• Other links:

• www.evoting.cs.may.ie

• www.cev.ie

• www.stdlib.net

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Elections in Ireland - some background

• Proportional Representation by means of a Single Transferable Vote (PRSTV) specified in the constitution.

• An election occurs roughly every 2 years on average

• A referendum occurs roughly every 3 years on average

• Counts are centralised and lengthy

• Counts have a very high degree of scrutiny by international standards

• Polls are administered by the Government through the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government but operated locally.

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Elections in Ireland - some background

• Polling stations in local schools, sports centres and so on

• 1 Polling officer and 1 control clerk per ballot box. Roughly 50 ballot boxes per constituency

• 1 returning officer per constituency

• Roughly 30 counting officers per constituency

• Long voting hours (08:00 to 22:00)

• Electoral register is notoriously inaccurate

Reasons to use E-voting

• Enables voting for the disabled ✔

• Reduces voting error ✔

• Reduces counting error ✖

• Saves money ✖

• Looks better, advances society, e-government, etc. ?

E-voting timeline

• E-voting first examined and proposed in 1998

• First procurement round in 1999 (Nedap/Powervote are winners)

• E-voting trials in 3 and then 7 constituencies in 2002

• ICTE founded in May 2003

• E-voting scheduled for use nationwide in June 2004

• E-voting abandoned on May 1st 2004

Major E-voting issues

• No meaningful tests were ever performed, no end to end test.

• The only limited parallel tests actually failed, and the public were never told.

• The software has never been finalised and is under constant re-development.

• System had no functional specification.

• System had no acceptance tests.

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-voting

• E-voting activism did exist before ICTE

• Margaret McGaley thesis

• Joe McCarthy FoI requests

• Others too

• ICTE founded in May 2003 by Margaret McGaley

• First action was to start the mailing list, and announce ourselves to the world

• First real world meeting in July 2003 (over 100 subscribers by then)

Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-voting

• Margaret and Joe, and the Labour party, present to a parliamentary committee in December 2003, twice.

• Committee asks Minister to suspend roll-out and all spending, but a week later reverses this decision.

• Contract for 7,000 machines signed the very next day.

• Contract for even more machines signed the next month.

• Through action and media attention issue heats up over next few months

Electronic Voting in Ireland

Commission on Electronic Voting

• Following several debates in the parliament, Government finally concede a little and form the special Commission on Electronic Voting.

• Commission consists of 2 political appointees, a former high court judge, and the clerks of the upper and lower houses of parliament.

• Commission accepts over 165 submissions on the issue (less then 10 favour the system), asks various academics to analyse the issues.

• Reports on April 30th that it cannot recommend the system for use.

• Issues full report in December 2004, and then 2nd report in 2006.

Government Line

• Junior Government party decided to get out of the argument

• Government line has consistently been that the machines will be put to use following various changes (mainly the counting software), have never accepted the need for a VVAT.

• Government has at times resorted to outright lies.

• Government now saying the machines will be used in 2009, though it is not clear if anything is actually being done about this.

• Government changed its media campaign in response to us. Instead of Electronic voting being “easy for everyone”, the new campaign says “safe, accurate and reliable”.

What worked for us

• Not ever getting distracted by side-issues. By refusing to engage in meaningless arguments over money wasted, various reports and so on, simply constantly re-iterating the need for VVAT proved very successful.

• Open Collaboration - including press releases, media and legal strategies. There is little to fear when you have truth on your side.

• Political and Media awareness. Knowing the names of politicians, correspondents and other journalists can be very important.

• Having no money - being independent and grass-roots is a help with the media.

• ICTE supports E-voting, but only with a VVAT

What we could do better

• Hard to coordinate and channel a volunteer effort, requires a lot of dedication.

• More focus on the legal strategy and a call for an independent electoral commission.

• Help the E-voting issue internationally, particularly in Europe.

• Having realistic alternatives described can help win the media battles.

Current Status

• Government say they want to use the machines in 2009

• NEDAP say extensive and expensive modification required (initial speculation is at 20 million euro)

• Electronic Voting elections require more staff and cost more to run than traditional ones

• Electronic Voting would probably lead to queueing due to miscalculation on the number of machines required

• Public confidence in the machines at an all-time low due to hacking here in the Netherlands.

Current Status

• Machines still costing 700,000 euro a year just to store.

• More and more FoI material is coming in.

• ICTE and Digitalrights.ie cooperating on a potential legal challenge.

• Still no work within Government on the issue

Questions?

?


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