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.
“There is no more reason for a secret, unscrutinised electronic voting process than there is for any other secret process that injects votes into the tally without adequate scrutiny,” the association said. “Scrutiny improves security because it allows problems to be identified and rectified.”
The association recommended that — to ensure that this happens — all source code, documentation, reports and physical security procedures should be made available to the public.
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