Australia: E-voting should be open source | ZDnet

A consortium of university computer science departments has warned the Federal Government that all future computerised voting systems should be made open source to ensure that no votes will be miscast.

In a submission (PDF) to the House of Representatives review into the 2010 Federal Election, the Computing Research and Education Association of Australia (CORE) said that it is crucial, if Australia is to move to electronic voting, that the principles of privacy, integrity, transparency and scrutiny of the electoral system be upheld.

Australia: Queensland legislation holds e-voting at bay | Computerworld.au

The Electoral Commission of Queensland will forgo electronic voting for the next state election, sidelining plans to develop a system as a result of legislative restrictions in the state.

The commission allocated $960,000 in funding late last year for research into technology to assist voting for the blind and vision impaired, following similar projects in NSW and Victoria ahead of their respective elections.

Australia: Electronic voting a threat to democracy | Australian Broadcasting Corporation

File photo: Person voting at the ballot box (Thinkstock: Comstock)Online voting for last weekend’s NSW election was far more popular than expected. But embracing the convenient joys of this new technology introduces new risks to this core process of democracy.

As iTnews reported, the NSW Electoral Commission expected around 10,000 people to use their new iVote system. The actual number was more than 47,000, with more than 90 per cent of them being voters who were outside the state. Now without a doubt online voting makes it easier for travellers to vote.

It improves the lot of the disabled too, who can vote for themselves rather than rely on the assistance of others. And it’s a boon for the lazy who selfishly imagine that having to queue at a polling place once every three or four years is more of a burden than an undemocratic government.

But the success of an election shouldn’t been measured by its convenience, but by its ability to solve a conundrum: how to combine the complete transparency of process needed to eliminate fraud with the secrecy of individuals’ votes.The secret ballot was an Australian invention, even called “the Australian vote” for a time. Today it’s so common even in contexts outside national and state elections, and it so obviously removes the risk of voter intimidation, that we take it as a given. We’d be fools to give that away.

Full Article: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45784.html