An article in last Sunday's Sydney Sun-Herald (see: http://www.smh.com.au/national/blind-fury-vote-veto-by-vision-impaired-20090404-9sgz.html ) reports criticism of a recommendation of the Commonwealth Parliament's Electoral Matters committee that a trial system of electronically-assisted voting for the vision impaired be abandoned.

The Sun-Herald article quoted Blind Citizens Australia president, David Blyth, as saying:

"Scrapping the system would be contrary to the recently signed United Nations convention on the rights of persons with a disability."

It reports David Blyth calling for "civil disobedience" if this recommendation is adopted, that disobedience to take the form of refusal to vote by the visually impaired at the next elections. It concludes by saying that a final decision on the recommendation will be made by Special Minister of State John Faulkner.

My concerns are twofold.

The first is that the introduction of electronically-assisted voting for the visually impaired constitutes the thin end of the wedge for introducing electronic voting generally. Electronic vote recording and vote counting cannot be made subject to ordinary human scrutiny. Because of this, human nature being what it is, opportunity for unlawful manipulation of electoral results is greatly magnified for the powerful and electronically adept. Electronic voting in the US is the inspiration for the infamous 'Diebold Variations'. (See: http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm ) Diebold Corporation manufacture electronic voting machines and ATMs. Australia already has electronic electoral roll managment, already a cause of deep, if not yet widely understood, concern as to its propriety and potential for electoral manipulation.

The second is as to the violation of Australian sovereignty. Australian Parliaments enact electoral legislation. Is it acceptable to have some unaccountable entity, or more correctly, non-entity, in the form of a UN 'convention' stand over the Australian Parliament and dictate as to what legislation it may pass or repeal, and especially in so determinative an area as electoral matters?

And why does the Special Minister of State get to make the final decision? Doesn't the EM Committee report to the Parliament?

Not true that electronic voting is inherently dangerous. It is the private, capitalist model employed that is dangerous and not to be trusted.

Open source electronic voting and having an auditable paper copy would make electronic voting the logical way to go for both cost savings and the increasing the possibility for more active citizen participation in our democracy.

A few links
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/11/61045
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-9999555-83.html

For once I'm on the side of tradition, a paper vote in a box is a solid datum, retrievable, verifiable, and easy to check for tampering, by any half-sensible person.
Put it into the world of electrons and programs and it's far too easy to muck with, with little hope of the ordinary Bruce being able to spot any misbehaviour.
It doesn't matter WHO supplies or runs it, just look at what China/microsoft/US agencies etc can do now, we'd be wide open to just about any half-smart hacker, let alone vested interests, no thank you!.
Gov's and industry world-wide spend millions developing safe-guards, and the young-turks out there waltz through them regularly, just on principle, BECAUSE THEY CAN!

Maximillion,
Young Turks= bad guys?
A racist based remark try Young Erks more accurate and descriptive.
your next kebab may contain a little extra ….. revenge.
Or next time you have one too many your rug will trip you up in sympathy. :)

other than that I agree there is no need for us to go electronic besides which what would Kerry do....”good evening welcome to the national vote.........the winner was....” and all those commentators and their predicting machines all unemployed.Where's the excitement in that? Strueth elections are boring enough already. Strike a blow for full employment stick with the paper.

eAnt

I don't believe that Maximillion was being deliberately racist. The term "Young Turks", while having its origins in the military of the Ottoman Empire, came to mean any collection of young 'gung-ho' youth. Not necessarily 'bad' or good' just apt to be energetic, liberal and enthusiastic.

As for the topic, while I am a bit "young Turkish" about new technology generally, I am of a mind to say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" on this one. Australia is fortunate in having a small enough population that we can still use the very satisfactory pencil and paper.

Fractelle
I agree M was using an old saying my comment wasn't serious.
it was a joke as in ha ha.
I agree with him and you. I do think the poster of the question is being more than a chicken Little with the ever reliable 'thin edge of wedge argument'.
Conspiracies nearly all in reality end up being a disappointment to the eyes of the beholder.
But for visually impaired if it helps them then what the heck. If the rest us do finish up with electronic voting it will be a both an unnecessary and expensive step fraught with the worries M mentioned.
If we do it will beceuse we took our eyes off the ball by not telling our local members. Then again you can tell them often but never very much.

Hey eAnt

No probs, as you are new to OLO I am ignorant of your abilities, however you are clearly capable of enlightened debate rather than bluster. I did not intend to patronise. Please accept apologies.

On topic, yes blind people need help with voting and a lot else besides. However, the expense of changing technology has to be balanced by need. As in how many blind people does it take to change technology? Sorry, bad joke. Apologies now to all vision impaired people. I have to wonder how they manage to vote now - does anyone know?, p'raps I should just google instead.

Must admit to considerable scepticism, fear and loathing after the first GW Bush 'win' back in 2000. Thought USA system was totally f^cked until Obama win.

Cheers

Mikk,

Thanks for those links.

Mikk's first linked page, that of WIRED article 'Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting', identifies the eVACS® software as being open source software. It says:

" Although a private Australian company designed the system, it was based on specifications set by independent election officials, who posted the code on the Internet for all to see and evaluate. What's more, it was accomplished from concept to product in six months. It went through a trial run in a state election in 2001.

Critics say the development process is a model for HOW ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES SHOULD BE MADE in the UNITED STATES.

Called eVACS, or Electronic Voting and Counting System, the system was created by a company called Software Improvements to run on Linux, an open-source operating system available on the Internet."

This link, given in the article as a blue text link, 'Software Improvements', reports that it was Software Improvements' eVACS® software (billed as being suitable for conducting open, transparent and verifiable electronic elections which can be run in parallel with paper systems) that was used for the 2007 trials referred to in the Sun-Herald article: http://www.softimp.com.au/evacs/News%20Items/news26Nov07.html

This is Software Improvements' election systems index page: http://www.softimp.com.au/evacs/index.html

This is a link to an AEC report on '[2007] Electronic Voting Trials for Electors who are Blind or have Low Vision': http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/e_voting/low_vision.htm

This is a link to an AEC index page to various electronic voting trials: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/e_voting/index.htm

This is a link to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) '[Electronic Voting] Status Report No.1', dated 2001: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/report.htm . It reports, inter alia, "In January 2001, [US corporation] election.com were awarded a contract to run the Australian NRMA Board of Directors' election .........", and, "Election.com would like to participate in ........... Internet voting in Australia.".

The plot is thickening already!

Corporate manouvring?

"Corporate maneuvering?"

I would say that it because business is always looking for the most economical way of doing things and this is cheap and it works. Its funny how businesses treat open source stuff. It must hurt not to be able to profit from it and be undercut by it. But they still use it. Because its free.

No worries, I got the jokes, and always appreciate a giggle.
I don't see why we can't organise a sight-impaired voting machine, one that produces a paper vote for them, one they can check easily, strewth, how long have punch-cards been around?
Tell a 'puter who you vote for, out pops the card, put it into another slot, it reads back your vote to you for verification, what's so hard about that?

Mikk,

I have no beef with open source software and/or Linux. Quite the reverse: I am a fan of it. I sense from your last post that I may not have made clear enough the nature of the corporate manouvring I speculated might be behind the seemingly intended abandonment of the open source eVACS® based trial that is the subject of the 'Blind fury: ...' Sun-Herald article.

What I sense could be a consequence of a less than full and open debate upon the abandonment of electronically assisted voting for the vision impaired is that the gate gets to be closed upon the electorally transparent Australian-developed open source based product, but the same gate gets to be re-opened a little later in a non-transparent procurement process so as to admit the proprietary US system (or systems) to the probable exclusion of the Australian product. That is why I questioned, in my opening post, the recommendation of a Parliamentary Committee going direct to the Special Minister of State for a final decision. With members of the Electoral Matters Committee clearly being uncomfortable with their recommendation, it would seem to me that such a situation in relation to such a fundamental aspect of democracy would warrant a fuller Parliamentary debate before decision.

I note again, particularly, that the eVACS® system is claimed to be capable of being run in parallel with existing paper-based election systems, systems essential to the electoral legislation that requires that electoral results be determined by SCRUTINY, and that eVACS® presumed otherwise major competitor, elections.com , considers that the current paper-based voting process is too complex, costly and slow for its system to run in parallel with.

But I digress from my own topic.

This topic is not about the merits or demerits of electronic voting and/or counting. It is about whether electoral bureaucracies effectively see themselves as setting the course and rate of change with respect to electoral practice in contradiction of the historically accepted supremacy of Parliament.

There exists a history of such bureaucratic usurpation of authority in recent years.

Forrest

Is your beef, therefore, of a "Yes, Minister" persuasion. Where bureaucracy rules government? I share your concerns.

However, I don't see a problem with electronic voting systems for disabled people. Or is this simply a 'thin end of the wedge' scenario that you are proposing?

After further consideration, I do believe that voting will become electronic at some point in the future. We already conduct a great deal of highly personal business online, banking, tax returns, shopping. This is the future way. And a golden opportunity for "corporate maneuvering". Scary and I don't have an inkling of a solution - right now.

Fractelle,

I have not been dodging your question(s). Just trying to work out how to answer them - there are so many layers to them.

You ask:

"Is your beef, therefore, of a "Yes, Minister" persuasion. Where bureaucracy rules government?"

Answer:

Yes, but worse. Without the humour of Sir Humphrey, Bernard, and Jim Hacker. If I could change one word in your question, it would be 'rules'. I would change that to 'forms', or 'effectively decides'.

You say:

"... I don't see a problem with electronic voting systems for disabled people."

Answer:

Neither do I, and neither, it would appear, does the AEC. Maximillion's post of Monday, 13 April 2009 at 9:21:49 AM broadly outlines exactly what the trial of eVACS® at the 2007 elections achieved. See this link to an AEC report on '[2007] Electronic Voting Trials for Electors who are Blind or have Low Vision': http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/e_voting/low_vision.htm

The thing is, the EM Committee have had presented to them a cost-per-electronically-assisted-vote-cast for each of the 850 electronically assisted votes cast (in only 29 polling places) in the trial, of $2,597. When you compare this to the average cost of unassisted paper ballots of $8.36 each, you sort of cannot blame the Committee for its recommendation to abandon the system. Far too simplistic an analysis, in my opinion.

You ask:

"... is this simply a 'thin end of the wedge' scenario that you are proposing?"

Answer:

Yes, but not only with respect to introducing fundamental change in the method of recording and counting votes, but also with respect to sidelining the statutorily appointed officers responsible for the front-line conduct of elections, the Divisional Returning Officers, with their historic independence, accountability, and underlying propriety in the discharge of that function.

You say:

"I do believe that voting will become electronic at some point in the future."

Answer:

Yes, and many, if not a majority, in the community, probably have that expectation, whether for good or ill.

And bureaucracy is counting on it!

Forrest

Thank you for your considered responses to my questions.

But no thanks for the shiver of fear that ran down my back on reading your replies.

Maybe Orwell was out by 100 years, 2084 is not that far away and we have the technology.

Fractelle,

Orwell was not out by 100 years with respect to Orwellian changes to electoral practice in Australia. He was right on target! The year 1984, at least in Australia, marked a profound intensification in the introduction of the sort of technological and legislative environment that permits the covert hijacking of democracy that you fear.

1984 marked the inception of the Australian Electoral Commission, and what can now be recognised as the first steps in the introduction of an unlawful form of centralized electronic electoral roll-keeping. The last printed, purchasable-by-the-public collection of Commonwealth Divisional electoral rolls properly capable of amendment and certification by the Divisional Returning Officers, the statutorily responsible persons, had been printed in 1982.

The (early) 1 December 1984 Federal elections saw the trial, in Northern Territory Divisions, of the optical mark reading of the certified lists of electors actually used to record vote claims. Ostensibly this optical mark reading scanning was being trialled as a means of automating the previously labour-intensive 'mark-back' of the electoral roll undertaken after each election to determine the electors who had appeared to have failed to vote, voting being compulsory. The justification for it was undoubtedly one of 'saving money'.

A concommitant requirement of the adoption of these optically scanable lists on which vote claims were recorded was one of centralized production. At the time of the trial only one or two Divisions were involved, so this corollary of adoption largely went unnoticed by the rest of Australia's front-line electoral officials, the DROs and their permanent staff. The 'reasoning' appears to have gone: "if we have to centrally produce these lists, we may as well go for the economies of centralized roll-keeping". The most significant function of the DROs was usurped by the Central Office of the AEC, but without the necessary change in the law having been enacted.

The other thing that automating the mark-back entailed was the breaking of the chain of custody of critical electoral accountancy documents, the marked lists of electors, upon which elections were conducted.

Scared more?

Fractelle,

We really need a more accurate term than 'bureaucracy' by which to label those who seemingly have overseen the introduction of the systems, many of them electronic and humanly unauditable (unless you are one of the programmers who designed and use such systems), that can be seen to threaten the hijack of democracy in Australia. I feel it fails to include some who are clearly not formally part of the public service, while at the same time unwarrantably smearing many serving public officials who have been blameless throughout in this electoral debacle.

Can I suggest the term 'metabureaucracy'? An unaccountable, only partially identifiable, elite. Transcending political party, and perhaps even national, loyalties and interests in influencing, if not determining, at one or two removes, the formation of Australian public policy.

Remember Sir Humphrey in one of the 'Yes, Minister' episodes? The issue conflicting Jim Hacker was one involving dioxins. The term 'metadioxins' was brought up, I think by Bernard, as a means of putting a spin on the issue for his Minister. Sir Humphrey, seeking definition, soliloquised: "'meta', from the Greek; above, or beyond, dioxin. Yes, metadioxins, Minister!"

I believe what we have here in both the historical and anticipated attempts to introduce centralized electronic roll management, electronic vote recording, and vote counting, into Australian electoral practice is indeed "above, or beyond, dioxin" in its existing, and potential future, harmful effects upon Australian democracy.

It is interesting to see TRTL having posted, on the 'Best uses for $43B?' thread, a link to an article in The Australian by Ziggy Switkowski, a former CEO of Telstra. One Zigmund Edward Switkowski is reported as having become the Chairman of Hermes Precisa Australia Pty Ltd in 1991. Hermes Precisa is the company that took over Endata Pty Ltd, the company that enabled the introduction of the optically scanable lists in the 1984 trials, and subsequently Australia-wide at the 1987 Federal elections. The Eastman Kodak Corporation was thought to have been at the bleeding edge of OCR in the 1980s. Switkowski was with Kodak 18 years from around 1982.

Metabureaucrat?

Getting back to the 'Blind fury', let's extend the simplistic cost analysis of the trial of eVACS® at the 2007 elections.

Had the 20,000 visually impaired electors that various disability groups had hoped would use the system trialled actually done so, the notional cost-per-vote would have only been $110, well down on the $2,597 per vote experienced at the 2007 Federal elections.

Had approximately five times as many pre-poll voting centres (one per electoral Division) been equipped with the eVACS® system (at, let's say, being generous, five times the $2.2M cost), and all of the estimated 300,000 visually impaired electors used those facilities during the pre-poll voting period, then the notional cost of an electronically assisted vote would have been around only $37. So being realistic, it could be expected that, if there was to become genuinely widespread interest among the visually impaired in electronic, as opposed to any other, assistance in voting, that a cost per vote of between $37 and $110 might be achieved.

At such lower costs per vote, had they been achieved, it is, in my opinion, much less likely that the EM Committee would have recommended, indeed could have justified, abandonment of the eVACS® system.

It is important to remind ourselves that the eVACS® system produced a printed ballot paper recording each such assisted elector's vote, those ballot papers being duly accounted for and counted by scrutiny as provided by existing law. Expressed differently, eVACS® fitted in with the EXISTING paper ballot system of recording and counting of votes.

By quoting the ridiculously high cost per vote of $2,597 achieved in the trial as justification for abandonment of eVACS®, but simultaneously mounting an emotional blackmail standover tactic purporting that such abandonment violates the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with a disability, is the metabureaucratic intention to effectively force the changeover of the WHOLE vote recording and counting process of ALL electors votes to become an electronic one as the only way to get the cost per vote down?

Forrest

Still a bit sleepy, must have second cuppa.

Metabureacrat - wonderful (I don't even remember that episode of Yes Minister but can imagine Sir Humphrey bristling with pleasure at the thought of being a metabureaucrat (he is not the type to purr; bureaucrats 'bristle' when wielding power).

As you have noted metabureaucrats are not exclusive to government. One of the plethora of reasons small business needs all the support it can get.

Your closing line:

"...emotional blackmail standover tactic purporting that such abandonment violates the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with a disability is the metabureaucratic intention to effectively force the changeover of the WHOLE vote recording and counting process of ALL electors votes to become an electronic one as the only way to get the cost per vote down?"

Yes, this is the way that 'human rights' are subverted.

So when and where is the revolution, comrade?

Fractelle,

You must be careful about revolutions. The only one that has ever been any good was the Glorious one of 1689 that gave us our Bill of Rights. Whilst ever our polity remains that of our Constitutional Monarchy, we can continue to benefit from the afterglow of that bloodless revolution. We do not need another revolution, merely to be freed from a grand deception that has come to be with respect to the electoral process.

As we have been talking about 1984, metabureaucrats, and revolutions, perhaps this quote is pertinent.

Quote of the day on this web page: http://tinyurl.com/ce5o5h , a link posted by GrahamY with this tweet: "Forget Cap and Trade, the US looks at Carbon Prohibition"

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." George Orwell - 1984.

Is it reasonable in the present context to identify Orwell's 'Party' with the 'Australian' metabureaucracy?

Suspect so.

All this metab' talk makes me think I should re-read Machiavelli's "The Prince", I'm sure there's relevant observations there, I just can't remember them, it's been too long. As I recall, he was making some points about the addictive and endless nature of the search for Power.

Fractelle,

All this speculation with respect to the identity of possible metabureaucrats has brought to mind something that happened back in the eighties. Wasn't it then that Kodak Australia received around $60M courtesy of the Australian taxpayer, in order to be able to remain viable in its Australian operations? I have a recollection that it was around 1986, to be a bit more specific.

I don't know whether Endata Pty Ltd (the company that provided the optical mark reading equipment and the outsourced marked electoral roll scanning services the AEC used when it first trialled, and subsequently introduced, the automation of the production of the 'mark-back' roll) had any links, official or otherwise, to the Eastman Kodak Corporation before it was taken over in 1991 by Hermes Precisa Australia. I do recall seeing the birthplace of one of its founding directors as being Denver, Colorado, USA on a company search document, which might suggest some such connection. I also recall a claim being made in a paper delivered to a Technology in Government conference some time in the late 1980s that the contract for custom built OMR equipment required for the 1987 Federal elections was approved under a 'certificate of expediency' and delivered within a five week period.

Could it be, do you think, that $60M of Australian taxpayers money may have funded the development and deployment of this technology not only for use in the Australian electoral context, but for wider deployment in introducing electronic vote recording and counting in the US electoral system?

It seems to me that that would be the sort of lead time necessary to produce the technological environment that permitted the so evidently manipulable results around the year 2000 in the US that are now the subject of such suspicion.

I have no knowledge as to the corporate links of Software Improvements Pty Ltd, the supplier of the eVACS® system, which I might be seen as championing, but the fact that it is claimed to have been formed in 1992, in the above context, is of some concern.

Forrest I do vaguely recall the bailing of Kodak. I used to live in Coburg which if I recall was the head office for Kodak in Australia. I remember hearing that it had been 'saved' and then a few short years later it was as dead as the cemetery it was built next to.

I don't have any of the background you have supplied here. Nor do I believe in fully cohesive world wide conspiracies - yes conspiracies occur but they tend, by their nature, to be disparate and only appear to be working in unison when goals meet in accidental synchronicity. This is why Al Qaeda has not managed to be as big a threat as it could be given that there is much inter-faction friction.

Also I see the left/right pendulum swinging from the right towards the centre, therefore I remain optimistic.

However, vigilance is essential. Now that they are named, so shall they be identified - METABUREAUCRATS - OUT ONE TODAY.

ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!

In my post of Friday, 17 April 2009 at 7:05:15 PM, I have unintentionally misled viewers. I posted:

"It is important to remind ourselves that the eVACS® system produced a printed ballot paper recording each such assisted elector's vote, those ballot papers being duly accounted for and counted by scrutiny as provided by existing law. Expressed differently, eVACS® fitted in with the EXISTING paper ballot system of recording and counting of votes."

THIS IS NOT STRICTLY CORRECT.

A careful re-read of the content of this link to an AEC page: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/e_voting/low_vision.htm , one I have given before, reveals that the eVACS® system does NOT fit in with the existing paper ballot system because it does not produce a humanly readable ballot paper.

Under the sub-heading 'The way the system works' is this statement:

"Once the voter had made their selections, the voter’s preferences were printed on a small laser printer next to the electronic voting machine. The preferences were contained within a two-dimensional barcode to preserve the secrecy of the vote in the polling place. These barcodes were decoded later and the votes counted along with all other pre poll votes. At no time were the voter’s preferences able to be associated with the identity of the voter."

The issue of secrecy of the vote would be easily able to be addressed by the use of a paper having a textural difference between back and front such that a visually-impaired person could by feel determine how to fold a humanly-readable printed ballot paper in the conventional way that a sighted person does, such that a polling official can see that the ballot paper is inserted into an envelope. The envelope could then be deposited in the locked or sealed ballot box, by the sight-impaired voter, by feel, if necessary or desired.

With an encoded ballot paper, the count is at the mercy of a computer program, and there is also prospect of an unauthorised progressive count occurring.