Canada: B.C. province backs online voting trials | Vancouver Sun

B.C. could soon be testing Internet voting after a formal request to try the idea received a verbal endorsement from the provincial government Monday. Elections B.C. wants permission to run pilot projects on online voting and other new technologies, chief electoral officer Keith Archer said in a report tabled in the legislature.

The independent elections agency wants the freedom to try new technologies and look at security issues, Archer said. “We want to have the mandate to at least have the exploration of this topic,” he said.

Editorials: Who’s behind Americans Elect and what they want | Los Angeles Times

A few weeks ago I wrote about an effort to put a centrist “third party” candidate on the presidential ballot next year, launched by an organization called Americans Elect. The privately funded group plans to stage a wide-open primary on the Internet, to enable voters to choose a ticket drawn from the middle of the political spectrum. Voters can propose anyone they like, but the process is designed for potential centrist candidates such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

That column provoked a torrent of questions from readers. Some asked: Isn’t this just a Republican plot to seduce independents away from President Obama? Others asked: Isn’t this just a Democratic plot to seduce moderates away from the GOP? These are fair questions in an age in which seemingly benign proposals sometimes conceal hidden agendas. So I did some more digging to find out who is behind Americans Elect and what it’s really after.

Oregon: Trying Out Voting by iPad for Disabled | NYTimes

Oregon last week became the first state in the country to use iPads to allow people with disabilities to vote, and it intends to use them again for another election in January. Several other states are expected to follow suit with iPads or other tablets, possibly as early as for next year’s presidential election.

In a special primary election in five counties in Oregon, 89 people with disabilities marked their ballots on an iPad. They did not actually cast their votes online — Internet voting is an idea whose time has not yet come, several elections officials said.

Voting Blogs: Voters in Oregon cast ballots with the help of iPads | electionlineWeekly

“I Voted” took on a whole new meaning during the recent special election in Oregon when nearly 100 voters cast their ballots with the help of iPads. The tablet device, which many people associate with surfing the Web, was used to allow disabled voters better access to their ballots. According to Steve Trout, elections director for Oregon, the elections division hatched the idea of using the iPad for accessible voting as a way to save money and provide greater access.

“We have been spending large sums of money on our accessible voting system but having very few people use it. We wanted to see if there were alternatives that were less expensive, provided greater utility and were easier to use for both voters and election officials,” Trout explained. “We played around with the idea here long enough to think it was worthy of a pilot.”

Editorials: A democracy deficit at Americans Elect? | Richard Hasen/Politico

The new group Americans Elect is trying to ease the path for an independent presidential candidate chosen by voters in a national Internet primary to appear on the election ballot in all 50 states. This is a tall order — achieving national ballot access for a third-party candidate to run against President Barack Obama and the Republican nominee is complicated and expensive.

Enthusiasm for this group is growing. But it could be misplaced. Tom Friedman said in The New York Times that Americans Elect will do to the two-party duopoly “what Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music [and] what drugstore.com did to pharmacies.” Perhaps.

Rather than gush about this group, I fear many aspects of it: its secrecy; the uncertain security for its Internet election and, most important, the lack of democracy in its system for electing a presidential nominee.

Canada: Can internet voting boost turnout without risk? | CBC News

Low voter turnout has become a lot like bad weather — something everyone talks about, at least around election time, but something that seems beyond remedy. Since various appeals to democratic principles have failed to move people off their couches to vote, some governments are considering internet voting to try and increase voter turnout.

Electronic voting has already been used in some provincial party leadership races and in municipal elections from Huntsville, Ont., to Halifax. But it also has staunch opponents, who warn it can be hacked and suggest it may not do anything to engage voters who are turned off politics.

“Technology . . . can be hacked to distort voter results in ways that can never be traced,” warns Duff Conacher, of the Ottawa-based advocacy group Democracy Watch.

National: Why don’t Americans vote online? | CNN.com

Tuesday is Election Day in the United States, and although the mostly state and local races won’t stir the same passions as next year’s presidential contest, millions of people will cast ballots. They’ll do it in much the same way that Americans have for centuries: by showing up at a polling place and ticking off boxes for their candidates of choice.

All of which raises the question: In an era when virtually every daily task can be done on the Internet, why can’t we vote online, too? The answer depends on whom you ask. Advocates say the time is right to seriously consider letting voters cast a ballot from the comfort of their homes or even on the screens of their mobile phones.… But critics, many of them in the cybersecurity world, argue that letting people cast votes from their home computers is a recipe for chaos.

Connecticut: Online voting on minds of lawmakers | The Republican-American

Lawmakers came close to requiring that state election officials implement online voting this year, with an eye toward allowing military personnel overseas easier access to the ballot box. A Watertown lawmaker plans to make a fresh attempt in the next regular session.

Computer scientists who took part in an Oct. 27 panel discussion organized by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said, unanimously, such a system cannot possibly be secured. “Secure Internet voting is a bit like the phrase ‘safe cigarettes,'” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Ron Rivest. “It’s just an oxymoron. It’s just not possible to do this securely.”

Verified Voting Blog: If I can shop and bank online, why can’t I vote online?

There is widespread pressure around the country today for the introduction of some form of Internet voting in public elections that would allow people to vote online, all electronically, from their own personal computers or mobile devices. Proponents argue that Internet voting would offer greater speed and convenience, particularly for overseas and military voters and, in fact, any voters allowed to vote that way.

However, computer and network security experts are virtually unanimous in pointing out that online voting is an exceedingly dangerous threat to the integrity of U.S. elections. There is no way with current technology to guarantee that the security, privacy, and transparency requirements for elections can all be met with any security technology in the foreseeable future. Anyone from a disaffected misfit individual to a national intelligence agency can remotely attack an online election, modifying or filtering ballots in ways that are undetectable and uncorrectable of just disrupting the election and creating havoc. There are a host of such attacks that can be used singly or in combination. In the cyber security world today almost all of the advantages are with attackers, and any of these attacks can result in the wrong persons being elected, or initiatives wrongly passed or rejected.

Nonetheless, the proponents point to the fact that millions of people regularly bank and shop online every day without apparent problems,. They note that an online voting transaction resembles an ecommerce transaction, at least superficially. You connect your browser to the appropriate site, authenticate yourself, make your choices with the mouse, click on a final confirmation button, and you are done! All of the potential attacks alluded above apply equally to shopping and banking services, so what is the difference? People ask, quite naturally, “If it is safe to do my banking and shopping online, why can’t I vote online?”

This is a very fair question, and it deserves a careful, thorough answer because the reasons are not obvious. Unfortunately it requires substantial development to explain fully. But in brief, our answer is in two-parts:

1. It is not actually “safe” to conduct ecommerce transactions online. It is in fact very risky, more so every day, and essentially all those risks apply equally to online voting transactions.

2. The technical security, privacy, and transparency requirements for voting are structurally different from, and much more stringent than, those for ecommerce transactions. Even if ecommerce transactions were safe, the security technology underpinning them would not suffice for voting. In particular, the security and privacy requirements for voting are unique and in tension in a way that has no analog in the ecommerce world.

National: Online Voting: Just A Dream Until Security Issues Can Be Fully Addressed, Experts Say | Courant.com

Allowing citizens to cast ballots online would increase participation in elections and make democracy more accessible. But don’t expect to vote on your iPhone in Connecticut anytime soon; the technology just isn’t there to ensure secure elections, said several experts who participated in a panel discussion at Central Connecticut State University Thursday night hosted by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.

“The biggest concern I have about Internet voting is that we don’t know how to do it securely,” said Ron Rivest, an expert in cryptology and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It sounds wonderful but it’s an oxymoron. … We don’t have Internet experts who know how to secure big pieces of the Internet from attack. Rivest called online voting a fantasy and said it’s at least two decades from replacing the methods currently in use.

Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, is another skeptic. He led a team of students from the university who successfully penetrated a test-run of Internet voting in Washington, D.C., in 2010. “We began … role playing — how would a hacker, a real malicious attacker, attempt to break in and compromise the vote and, within 48 hours of the start of the test, we had gained virtually complete control of the voting server and changed all of the votes,” he said.

India: Security fears put spanner in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation e-voting plan | Indian Express

The plan to introduce e-voting and increase voter participation in next year’s BMC elections is expected to be shelved due to delays and security fears.
E-voting was considered as an option to facilitate voting for the urban middle class and increase their share in the overall voting percentage that was a dismal 47 per cent in 2007. The BMC and the State Election Commission were to jointly develop a system of online voting for the elections due in February.

But the BMC’s election department has received more than 30 objections from individuals and organisations against the implementation of e-voting, citing security concerns. An official from the election department said the system is not robust and can lead to rigging. “The plan was announced in February this year, but authorities sat on it for many months. Now, there is hardly any time left now and the demo trial is yet to take place. We have inspected the existing system and have observed a number of potential security breaches,” he said. The estimated cost of implementing e-voting is Rs 35 crore.

Editorials: The Internet can’t fix democracy—only citizens can | Macleans.ca

The technology of voting has changed substantially since ancient Athenians tossed coloured stones in jars and scratched names on pottery shards. Today it’s paper ballots that seem ancient and outdated.

Poor turnout by voters in Manitoba and Ontario this month has prompted renewed calls for online voting. “We have to do something,” vowed Greg Selinger, recently elected premier of Manitoba, referring to his province’s depressing turnout numbers. “We’re going to take a look at e-voting.” Elections Canada plans to test electronic balloting in a federal by-election by 2013 sometime after 2013. Many municipalities across the country are already using the new technology.

The appeal of online voting is obvious. Voter turnout is poor across the board, but particularly dismal among the youngest cohort of voters. Since this generation has grown up immersed in online communications, its members might be enticed to vote in greater numbers if the ballot was in a format familiar and convenient to them. Voting at home via a smartphone certainly seems more attractive than walking down the street to a public school or community hall, standing behind a cardboard screen and putting an X on a piece of paper.

And yet it is not clear online voting actually has the power to draw more people to the polls, whatever their age. From the municipal election evidence in Canada, it appears online voting may boost the number of people who vote in advance polls, but does little to change overall voter turnout. A large-scale experiment in Britain was abandoned in 2007 after numerous technical glitches and no appreciable improvement in turnout. All of which suggests online voting provides already-committed voters with a more convenient means of voting, but fails to address the underlying apathy of those who don’t.

Maldives: Electronic voting depends on public awareness | Minivan News

The Maldives has expressed support for electronic voting systems in India and Pakistan, and is taking steps to introduce Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to its own electoral process. At an informal meeting of Electoral Commissioners from SAARC member countries in India, the Maldives joined Bhutan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka in praising India’s use of EVMs and indicated that “legal amendments would be thought of to see that EVMs were made popular to ensure free and fair polls in their countries,” Indian news outlet The Hindu reported yesterday.

Commissioners met to discuss Afghanistan’s voting procedures in light of waning financial and other aid from NATO allies. Maldives Elections Commission President Fuad Thaufeeq said the commission, which is developing a proposal for Parliament regarding EVMs, has met with the Committee on Independent Commissions to discuss their implementation.

Switzerland: Expats pleased with e-voting, disappointed no candidates elected | swissinfo

The parliamentary elections on Sunday were both a success and failure for the large community of Swiss voters living abroad. On the one hand, electronic voting worked in the four cantons that introduced the system for expatriate voters. However, none of the Swiss abroad who stood for election were voted in.

“We are both delighted and grateful to the cantons for carrying out these tests and to the government for allowing them,” Rudolf Wyder, director of the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA), told swissinfo.ch. It was the first time that electronic voting was possible.

More than 3,500 expatriates registered to vote were able to benefit from e-voting in cantons Basel City, St Gallen, Graubünden and Aargau. That amounts to 53.1 per cent of the Swiss abroad who cast ballots in these cantons, the Federal Chancellery said on Monday.

Canada: Vancouver online voting pilot nixed by province | CBC News

A pilot program for online municipal election voting in Vancouver won’t get off the ground in time for the upcoming civic election. Earlier this year, Vancouver city council passed a resolution to set up online voting for the advance polls of this year’s municipal election on Nov. 19, which would have allowed eligible voters to cast a ballot by home or mobile computer.

However, the city needed provincial approval to get the program up and running — and the province says there’s not enough time to ensure a fair and accurate process is in place.

Wisconsin: Legislature may not allow voters to receive ballots by email – JSOnline

A new, little-noticed state law guarantees voters can receive absentee ballots by email, but it may not be on the books for long. When legislators in May adopted a requirement that voters show photo ID at the polls, they also changed the law to ensure voters can receive absentee ballots by email if they ask for them. While voters can receive the ballots by email, they still have to return them by traditional mail or drop them off in person.

But in June, the state Senate included a provision in another bill that would repeal the requirement that municipal clerks email absentee ballots to all voters who request them. The clerks would still have to email absentee ballots to military and overseas voters, but not other voters.

Repealing the provision on emailed ballots was tucked into a bill that would move the partisan primary from September to August. Moving the primary is required to comply with a federal law meant to ensure military and overseas voters have enough time to return their ballots.

National: What it takes to make every vote count | MIT News

Eleven years after the disputed 2000 presidential election thrust the subject of electoral integrity into the spotlight, many of the challenges that jeopardized that election remain unresolved, voting experts said at an MIT-hosted conference held Saturday.

The conference, “Election Integrity: Past, Present, and Future,” convened by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP), brought together election administrators, academics and technology professionals from around the country, and commemorated the 25th anniversary of the First National Symposium on Security and Reliability of Computers in the Electoral Process, held in Boston in 1986. A central theme of Saturday’s conference was election integrity: assuring that votes are both recorded and counted as they were cast.

… Of particular concern, said Pamela Smith, president of VerifiedVoting.org, is the use of Internet voting systems that cannot be audited. Another issue, which she illustrated with a map identifying the current equipment used by each state, is the inability of DREs to recount ballots in a close election. And many key swing states, she said, continue to use unreliable DREs.

Philippines: Online absentee voting pushed in Philippines | philstar.com

Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and Filipino immigrants may soon be allowed to participate in electoral exercises in the country via the Internet. The proposal was raised during a hearing of the joint House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Suffrage and Electoral Reforms on the proposed amendments to the Overseas Absentee Voting law or Republic Act 9189.

Appearing before the House bodies, Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Commissioner Armando Velasco said Internet voting will be a convenient system for OFWs and other migrants Filipinos.

Velasco said like the majority of the congressmen, he also favors Internet voting as a remedial solution but “it should be studied further particularly the security aspect.”

Switzerland: OSCE monitors to observe Swiss elections | swissinfo

Experts from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are coming to Switzerland to monitor this month’s federal elections.
Their two main focuses of attention will be electronic voting for voters living abroad, and campaign financing, according to a joint statement issued on Friday by the federal chancellery and the foreign ministry.

The experts are hoping to learn from the Swiss e-voting experience so as to be able to apply the lessons in younger democracies and to help develop new election technologies. However, the OSCE monitors determine their programme themselves and will only give the Swiss authorities operational details at short notice.

Editorials: Should We Think Twice About Online Voting? | The Mark

Seduced by technology’s ability to facilitate the mundane tasks of daily life, many Canadians are finding the act of going out and voting too disruptive. With the exception of a slight uptick of around three per cent in the most recent federal election, voter turnout continues to decline.

What can be done to compel more people to take part in this fundamental function of a healthy democracy? Elections Canada is now exploring the possibility of “e-services” such as internet voting. Yet, as we wade into considerations of altering our voting practices, we must ask ourselves an important question: In addressing the participatory deficit plaguing our democracy, should our primary focus be on making voting more convenient?

In its report on the 41st general election, Elections Canada is careful to identify its core mandate: to ensure that Canadians can exercise their democratic right to vote or to run as a candidate. Note that its mandate is not to increase voter turnout. Nevertheless, the federal agency wants to meet Canadians’ expectations of convenience by exploring new options such as internet voting, and it is seeking approval to experiment with this method in a 2013 by-election.

Canada: Online elections sought by B.C. municipalities – concern that online voting could fall prey to hackers | CBC News

B.C. municipal leaders have endorsed the idea of online voting for the 2014 municipal elections — but debate on the issue has revealed deep divisions within the Union of B.C. Municipalities at its convention in Vancouver. A majority voted Wednesday to ask the province to do the work required to have online voting ready for the elections in three years.

Online voting is fraught with danger, said Coun. Donna Shugar, of the Sunshine Coast Regional District. “Particularly because you don’t know who is in the room with the voter, coercing or persuading,” Shugar said.

Many at the convention agreed with Shugar, and also expressed concern that online voting could fall prey to hackers.

Canada: Online voting for municipal elections still years away: Ida Chong | Vancouver Sun

The provincial government wants to bring in online voting for municipal elections as early as 2014, but has to change legislation first, Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Ida Chong said Wednesday. Speaking to reporters at the Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention in Vancouver, Chong said both she and Premier Christy Clark support the concept of voting over the Internet.

“I don’t believe it is impossible. We’re very keen on it,” she said, but cautioned, “It is still two-and-a-half, three years away in terms of changing legislation. I think it is possible.”

Her comments came as UBCM delegates called on the province to enact changes that would allow them to conduct online votes, even though some delegates raised concerns about security and the potential for ballot fraud.

Voting Blogs: In which I help the news media | Paper Vote Canada

1) Delvinia releases a report
“Our latest DIG report examines the Town of Markham’s experience with Internet voting in the 2003, 2006 and 2010 municipal election” Source
This is good.

In 2010, with the support of Ryerson University, Delvinia secured an Engage Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to commission Nicole Goodman, a PhD candidate specializing in Canadian political institutions and alternative voting methods, to provide a scholarly perspective on the data collected following the 2010 election as well as a comparison to the data Delvinia collected in the 2003 and 2006 elections.

It is also excellent to see academic research in this field and a rigorous report.
2) However

The DIG report is available online at www.delvinia.com/dig. The full research report is available for purchase through Delvinia. Please refer to our order form to obtain a copy of the report. Source

So objective fact 1: Delvinia is selling the full report.

Philippines: Comelec opposes Internet ballots for absentee Filipino voters abroad | GMA News

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday opposed proposals to have ballots downloadable over the Internet for Filipinos abroad who will cast their votes as overseas absentee voters.

Comelec Commissioner Armando Velasco said ballot secrecy might be compromised if downloadable ballots are included in amendments proposed for Republic Act 9189 or the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003.

“There is a violation of the sanctity of the ballot and questions on security,” he said in a joint hearing by the House committee on suffrage end electoral reforms and the House committee on foreign affairs Monday morning.

Editorials: The case against internet voting in Canada | Troy Media

Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer recently mused about experimenting with internet voting in a by-election, which many believe would result in a higher voter turnout (especially by those in remote locations, or with disabilities).

Besides ameliorating voter turnout, which has sagged badly in recent elections, it is believed that internet voting might reduce costs and provide quicker reporting of results.

But is e-voting a good idea? I’m not so sure. Meaningful observation of the voting process would be difficult. If the system has no paper trail, there’s no external evidence it has operated correctly.

Malaysia: Police net seven cyber-crooks who siphoned off RM250,000 | theSundaily

Using a combination of phishing and hijacking handphone numbers, a syndicate siphoned out about a quarter million ringgit from some online banking accounts over the past nine months. Police learnt just how elaborate the syndicate’s modus operandi was only after crippling the gang of cyber crooks with the arrest of six people in a raid on Friday.

The suspects aged between 20 and 27 comprised a Sierra Leone national said to be the mastermind, a male Jordanian and a male Pakistani, and four Malaysians, two of whom were women.

They were nabbed when a federal commercial crimes investigations department CCID team led by cyber crimes and multimedia head ACP Kamaruddin Md Din raided the apartment at the Millenium Square at Section 14, Petaling Jaya where police also seized computers, fake MyKad and bank cards.

National: Election Assistance Commission Releases Survey of Internet Voting | EAC

The EAC Certification Division has released the technical report “A Survey of Internet Voting,” a comprehensive review of Internet voting systems used in elections worldwide between 2000 and 2011. EAC staff conducted the study to assist in the development of electronic absentee voting guidelines, specifically to assist the Commission’s efforts to identify technologies that could improve services for military and overseas voters and voters with disabilities.

[From the report]

… Risk is a difficult concept to express, understand and measure. This is apparent in the means used to address risk from one project to the next. The EAC has knowledge of 13 formal risk assessments, and seven of these risk assessments are publicly available. Nearly every project used a different assessment methodology to measure risk.

Canada: Nanaimo Council pushes for online voting in British Columbia | canada.com

Nanaimo council members will push for online voting when representatives from B.C. communities meet later this month to discuss provincial policy issues.

Three communities have aggressively lobbied for online voting. Coquitlam, North Vancouver City and Fort St. John have all urged the Union of B.C. Municipalities to take the issue to the provincial government. Minister of Communities Ida Chong said the B.C. Elections Act has to change to allow Internet voting.

Norway: Prime Minister: ‘Vote for democracy’ | The Foreigner

Local election voting points towards increased participation at the polls this time around compared with four years ago. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg urges voters to show what is important for them.

NRK reports about 16 percent cast their ballot in Tromsø, yesterday, 4 percent higher than in 2007. Whilst the broadcaster says Sarpsborg and Lillehammer showed a good turnout, with queues in Kongsberg. Voters in Oslo were not put off by the rain, and there are indications of increased voter numbers in Stavanger and Bodø today.