Comment Articles

E-voting is too important to leave to politicians

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 05 Nov 2003 14:55 GMT

In the US, electronic voting machine company Diebold is at the heart of a growing controversy. A large cache of documents and code, apparently covering the development of its voting systems, has found its way onto various Web sites. Diebold is trying to get them removed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In turn, the Electronic Freedom Foundation is supporting a move to protect the publication of the documents, saying that as the files apparently show irregularities in both process and programming, it's in the public interest that they be openly debated.

There are a whole host of stories connected with Diebold and other companies in the field, few of them savoury. At heart, though, the systems are proprietary, the official certification process obscure -- even to the officials charged with monitoring the election process -- and the political ramifications enormous. It doesn't help that Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, is a major fundraiser for the Republican Party and said in a letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Would you trust anyone that partisan to run your voting system?

A world away, the Australians are doing it differently. Following a close election in 1998, where investigations revealed significant errors in the hand-counted paper ballot, the Australian Capital Territory authorities decided to investigate electronic voting. Already concerned about reliability, security and openness, the events in the US 2000 elections made them doubly cautious. In the end, they settled on a system called eVACS. The design and implementation was carried out by a private company, but in public -- documents and code were made available for public debate and scrutiny, as well as for formal analysis. Trials showed that eVACS performed as specified, and complaints about error or fraud are absent. The system runs on Linux and as lead engineer, Matt Quinn, told Wired Magazine: "Any transparency you can add [to the e-voting process] is going to enhance the democracy and, conversely, any information you remove from that process is going to undermine your democracy." Doesn't that seem a more trustworthy approach?

He's not alone in feeling that way. Everyone outside the e-voting companies and their lobbyists wants systems that are at least as open as the current paper systems. They have to be auditable -- no point in having a recount if you just press a button and the same number appears -- and they have to protect the privacy of the individual and the publicity of the counting process. Simple requests, and you can't help but question anybody who says otherwise.