back to article Australian Information Industries Association*: you're not the future of democracy, so please shut up

Australia's close-run federal election has brought out the tech sector in force, seeking government rent so it can appropriate the country's democracy. It's been trying – with very limited success – since the 1990s, but on the principle that “practice makes perfect”, the same arguments have been rolled out again: electronic …

  1. raving angry loony

    definition of "better".

    The one thing missing from the "electronic voting is better" camp is to analyse what they mean by "better". It will always be easier to cheat with an electronic system. Or rather, cheat in such a way that the cheating can't be detected. That, I believe, is one of the reasons that many parties would prefer to have electronic voting be more available.

    I'm a technophile, but sometimes low-tech is more honest. If not "better".

    1. veti Silver badge

      Re: definition of "better".

      It's obvious. "Better" means, "would funnel more money into the pockets of those who pay the report authors' salaries". Viz, the tech industry.

      I suppose there's no way to criminalise the release of self-serving bullshit "studies", but can we at least ridicule them a bit more?

    2. Stork Silver badge

      Re: definition of "better".

      Totally agree. To rig paper votes in a significant way without anyone finding out is a major operation.

      PS: UK does not (did not?) have secret ballot. There is (was?) a number on the ballot paper which can be linked to the voter, at least there was when I voted in Liverpool in the 90es.

  2. Lyle Dietz

    A long way off

    To use electronic voting the systems need to be open source, there must be no way to tie a voter to a ballot, and there must be a way to ensure that a a voter is only tagged as having voted if their ballot is in the system. There are probably many more requirements that I haven't thought of, which is another problem, we need to scope out the entire project.

    You also need to make sure that you don't dis-enfranchise anyone. I know a lot of people that would struggle doing electronic voting, and if you consider the various government systems I've used in my time, I might struggle as well..

    1. Medixstiff

      Re: A long way off

      "I know a lot of people that would struggle doing electronic voting,"

      There were plenty struggling just to choose 6 votes on the paper forms, from half the comments I heard on Saturday waiting to vote myself.

      There was a collective snigger when someone muttered "he's an a**hole" from one booth.

  3. Big-nosed Pengie

    What could possibly go wrong? I'm sure Diebold would be more than happy to sell us one.

  4. Sirius Lee

    Picking and choosing

    Fair point about the human element in the counting and verification steps of the process. But I recommend you avoid the price comparisons. The e-voting costs will be high because no one does it yet so the marginal cost is high. If/when e-voting become common place then the price per vote will tumble and is likely to be much cheaper. By including the price comparison argument you risk losing credibility on your solid argument in the noise created disputing your prices.

    1. veti Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Picking and choosing

      The price per vote will tumble if, and only if, the system as delivered is perfect and never needs to change.

      If, on the other hand, it works like every other major IT project in the history of ever, the price will just go on accumulating for as long as the system is in use.

  5. Oengus

    With the way that the parties in power here were able to "game" the system with the current system why would we make it easier by implementing an electronic system.

  6. toplard

    Democracy, in and of itself, is neither a good nor bad thing

    If the people of a nation are virtuous then democracy, no matter how perfectly it's done, will produce a virtuous government in general, all else being equal.

    Because virtuous government activity will now be getting done in the name of the people.

    Likewise, if the people in general lie, are corrupt, selfish and ignorant, the same system will deliver corrupt, selfish, ignorant government.

    More seriously still, the more perfect the voting system and the easier it is to vote, the more intensely and with a stronger mandate will that government conduct itself on the basis it was elected by the kind of people above.

    So democracy, in and of itself, is neither a good nor bad way to select government. It is what the people make of it...

    "Under all forms of government the ultimate power lies with the masses. It is not kings nor aristocracies, nor landowners nor capitalists, that anywhere really enslave the people — it is their own ignorance. Most clear is this where governments rest on universal suffrage."

    What did you make of it when you cast your vote in the UK's EU referendum recently, either as a leaver or remainer? Did you vote to leave or remain based on good virtue and the love of our children. Or your personal selfish interests, ignorance, irrational fears and hysteria?

    Some nations punish their people for not casting their vote. Quite a neurosis given this takes away the very rights democracy gives by implication. Australia is such a nation, and they will soon be electing a new leader.

    Here's the ozzie catch: If the people are forced to vote in a democratic election under pain of fines or other legalised punishment AND if the candidates are all known to be lying or corrupt, (as with the EU referendum in the UK) then what does that make of the people of a nation?

    You, as a voter, will be implicitly supporting the lies and corruption unless you abstain. For the lies and corruption will now be getting done in your name. And you will have done this deliberately by free will.

    Might this be why you will never find a "none of the above" box on the ballot paper of every democratic election? Everyone would abstain, of course.

    Spend some time thinking about this with great care.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Democracy, in and of itself, is neither a good nor bad thing

      >"Did you vote to leave or remain based on good virtue and the love of our children. Or your personal selfish interests, ignorance, irrational fears and hysteria?"

      You don't have to agree with the result. You just have to agree that majority decisions are better in the long run for countries. This is why the democratic countries have outperformed the non-democratic countries. It's also why countries that flip between democracy and dicktatrshp improve the lives of more of their people when they're in democracy, and the lives of more of their elite subset when not.

      The basis of this is the "all men are created equal" idea. The idea that you're born with the same potential, and given the same opportunities you can all achieve the same result.

      >"You, as a voter, will be implicitly supporting the lies and corruption unless you abstain"

      Only black and white? Every politician equally evil and no good guys unable to rise in the system? That's an unrealistic scenario. A more realistic scenario is this: Politicians do what they think is right, but often it isn't, its the wrong thing, and they are judged by hindsight to be wrong and they get voted out. The problems occur when the leader cannot be voted out, because he wasn't voted in. Instead we get an ever increasingly silly propaganda exercise to pretend wrong is right.

      Democracy is as much about voting out the failed leaders as voting in the next one.

    2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: Democracy, in and of itself, is neither a good nor bad thing

      Given that the only possible candidate in the recent EU referendum was the EU, I agree that "candidates are all known to be lying or corrupt"

    3. Cpt Blue Bear

      Re: Democracy, in and of itself, is neither a good nor bad thing

      Absolutely not. If you abstain you are simply abdicating your part in the collective decision.

      You do not have to vote in Australia. You have to turn up and get your name marked off to demonstrate you were part of the process. What you do then is your business. You could add a "none of the above" box (which I think should be on the ballot, by the way) or draw a cock and balls or just walk straight out again. The requirement is that you are part of the process, not that you cast a vote.

      Not voting is not a protest. Its just letting other people make the decision.

      Further, by not voting you are increasing the value of the votes of those who do. Essentially, you leave the decision up to motivated partisan interests. You see this in local council elections all the time. True story: a mate got himself elected mayor just by getting his old school mates and their parents to vote for him. It only took about 50 votes to tip it his way because so few people usually vote. This was in an affluent city fringe suburb, not a virtual slum on the fringe of town.

      Compulsory voting at worst creates noise in the system that drowns out the really loony end of the spectrum. That's why we don't have the spectacle of governments elected by 30% of the population.

      If you are citizen of a country you are complicit with the actions of the government. Just ask the IMF, government creditors or anyone who ever supported economic sanctions against another country.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Worth remembering

    "The tools were created by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), and constitute some of the most startling methods of propaganda and internet deception contained within the Snowden archive...."

    Tools include: "“Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS)

    https://theintercept.com/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/

    You cannot have an online election, because you cannot confirm the election result isn't the result of JTRIG and similar departments election rigging handiwork.

    Take note that its a 5 eyes country again. So the spooks and government in that country are fully aware how easy it is to rig internet elections, and would be aware of the tools available in their partner 5 eyes countries.

    It's not that they'd go blind into on-line voting and say 'ooops... we spooks didn't see that rigged election coming.... our bad' when they already make mass Internet interception tools and poll rigging tools.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Worth remembering

      Also worth remembering:

      Bluecoat (+others) were given a certificate capable of being used to fake TLS certificates. So how would we secure the encryption of the voter-to-website voting page? How can we rely on HTTPS connections when we can't rely on the voting websites certificate?

      Under various Snoopers Charter bills, it would expose the voting to the same bulk warrantless surveillance as other forms of Internet communication. Under those same bills, it would be a crime to reveal that this had been done, for whom and why.

      Since we cannot keep the routing of the votes within the voting country, we cannot guard against foreign interception and manipulation of the online results.

      The voting website would have to be internet facing, creating zero day exploit risk.

      The controller and everyone related to the website, one bad actor among them would be enough to rig the vote.

      It would let the government match person to IP address, and thus bulk internet data to voting decision. i.e. providing a wealth of data needed to influence voter choice.

  8. scubaal

    its not all or nothing

    one thing that many miss is its possible to have the best of both worlds. paper voting and electronic (ie automated) counting using scanning/barcode systems. that way the paper originals are retained should there be a dispute but the automated counting could run all the preference permutation in minutes.

    so the voting act would be the same - but the result would be near instant.

    why not?

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    I refuse electronic voting on principle

    There isn't an argument for e-voting that holds up to scrutiny at the moment. None of the affirmations of companies pushing e-voting products are objectively substantiated.

    * "[e-voting] could also potentially deliver significant cost savings" - how ? By magic ?

    A national e-voting system is going to be bespoke because no two countries do it exactly the same way. That means that there is no product that can handle the specifics in an easy-to-understand, idiot-proof manner, which means that there is room for obscure configuration settings that can easily be set/removed to give some unknown advantage to the party that knows exactly how to (ab)use them.

    And not to forget, not everyone has Internet access these days - so e-voting is not going to be a universal solution until Internet access is as basic as running water.

    * “If we had it in place today, we’d already have certainty regarding the results of the federal election"

    Oh really ? In France the vote is paper-based, and we only have to wait until 8 p.m. to get the metropolitan results. Overseas French territories give their results in the following 12 hours, by law. If your paper-based system does not do that, you might look into improving the system instead of replacing it with an untested/untrusted one.

    * "on the issue of proof of identity"

    Nice dig at ID cards, but please excuse me if I rofl. Proven ID on the Internet ? That won't happen without a serious overhaul of ID management in general. Whatever is chosen, the costs are going to be high and, again, each country is going to have its own specifications as to what is pertinent, so each implementation will have to take into account specific things that prevent one-solution-for-all and thus, no economies of scale.

    * "votes can still be miscounted, misread, or even simply misplaced"

    Nothing is perfect, but I have yet to see a democratic country with widespread voting corruption. There have obviously been instances, but we know about them because they were discovered, generally quickly discovered. E-voting opens the prospect of vote-rigging in such a way that it will remain undiscovered until a smarter genie finds out, or a disgruntled participant speaks up. That could take years, or more.

    Sorry, but there isn't an ounce of worth to any of those arguments in favour of e-voting and there are currently iron-clad arguments against.

    I've said it before and I'll repeat it as long as it takes : the only e-voting scheme worth it is the one where the specifications are open-source, the code is open-source, and everyone knows exactly what is happening and how.

    Obscurity is not security.

    1. Chris 155

      Re: I refuse electronic voting on principle

      Australia takes a while partly because we give postal voters a long time to semd in their votes, which has arguments for and against, but mostly because we use an IRV system. When there's a clear winner we pretty much know what the result is in a couple hours, when the result is really close and a lot of people vote third party it takes a lot longer to work out.

      Historically, only two elections in our history haven't had the result known the same night, they just happen to have been 2010 and 2016.

      An electronic voting system could help with IRV, but not with late postal votes. An online voting system could deal with both, but as i know of no proven or even proposed mechanism for providing anonymous, secure, and unique per voter voting in an online environment, that's kind of moot.

      That's not even counting forcing someone to vote in front of you.

      1. ButlerInstitute

        Re: I refuse electronic voting on principle

        What's a "late postal vote" ?

        In the UK postal votes need to be in a few days before the actual polling day.

        Does Australia do it differently ? Surely if votes may be received after polling day you can get a particularly weird form of tactical voting (ie due to being sent on or after polling day, able to respond to partial results or reporting or research).

  10. JWG

    How to do it in America

    I could envision it in America for major elections. Each state would require registration with legal state issued ID, at the same time you would have either opt-in for electronic voting or not, you'd then have to submit at state workstation an individual password (16 characters, upper/lower case required no proper names [not even Fido's name], along with special characters like!?*#%!?, and at least 5 non-consecutive numbers), plus a second set of at least 5 challenge questions. You would be issued a specific login ID. That done,you'd go home. No more than a week prior to the election, each registered voter in your household would receive a special USB ROM chip, which will encrypt your individual eballot, to plug into your computer when you're ready to vote. Once you hit "Done", your electronic ballot would be transmitted to the state's election system, logged, and validated with a success or failure response sent back (rather like how we efile our taxes), the USB encryption chip would then be logged and no longer useable by anyone. If accepted, you're done. If you screwed up, you'd have to wait until Election Day and go you to local voting precinct to vote there because you're too stupid to follow simple instructions and have the memory caoacity of a fruit fly. Given 50 states, with 50 different rules for registering and voting, with approximately 200 million possible voters in America, this proposal looks good on paper, but enacting the laws in 50 legislatures, getting the USB plug that would cost about $10 each, plus the voter would have to meet certain hardware minimum requirements (PC's only, as a 30 iPad plug would be even costlier), I figure there's only about 10,000 voters who could use this system, all of them bring BOFH's. The other 200 million (minus 10k) would be stuck with the way we vote now, because their machines would likely be some hackers bot, underpowered (because of all the malware running) and are too stupid to be allowed to vote in the first place. Again, I'm only proposing a USA eballot system, not one for worldwide use.

  11. GrumpyKiwi
    Trollface

    Truthiness

    I laughed at the "inaccurate right wing trope". While it may not be as common as made out by certain whinny internet commentators, we had a reasonably large scale example of it here during the 2010 local elections where a Labour party candidate redirected large numbers postal vote papers to his house in order to "complete them correctly".

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11205628

    1. Mark Exclamation

      Re: Truthiness

      I, too, laughed at the "inaccurate right wing trope" comment. But, then, if you go back over this author's past articles, it is quite obvious he is a closet left-winger (or maybe we could even forget the closet). Note to author: not everything right-of-centre is evil, and conversely, not everything left-of-centre is wonderful!

    2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Nice try

      but I read the article to the end. The fraud there involved a candidate getting his friends/supporters to pretend they lived in his electorate so they could vote for him. Nothing to do with multiple voting and not something an ID card would likely prevent (though the existing system did so easily).

  12. Frank Oz

    To Richard's points I'd add:

    Trust: If the electorate can't implicitly trust a voting system, then democracy fails - because nobody elected under such a system would have any perceived legitimacy. And eVoting systems that have been introduced (in the US and more particularly Florida), have been riven with rumours of bad coding, deliberately biased coding and outright fraudulent coding ... which have seen them sidelined soon after introduction.

    2. Gateways. The eVoting system isn't the only piece of critical infrastructure. You'd also need workable and usable gateways that verify identity (and eGov ... and its various predecessors SERIOUSLY SUCKS - both for purpose and performance, and here in Victoria government IT gateways and infrastructure are laughable).

    3. Identity Verification and Validation. We'd also need an acceptable digital signature/identity verification system - which doesn't exist in Australia at the moment.

    Bottom line: None of the technical requirements are in place, even if you leave the political acceptability

  13. Arthur Daily

    This is Either or OR, so you always have the option of a physical paper.

    The 2nd requirement must vote from a mobile phone in your name.

    3rd. You have a MyGov account and given electronic consent through it OR a setting that says 'refuse electronic vote' which is the default setting .

    4th. It must be cheaper and must be open source and must be independently verified by many. There is free software - thinking Brazil .

    5th Any cast vote comes with a reply SMS and optionally a confirmation magic number

    6) A 2nd app is sent out weeks before allowing you to practice vote and get a magic number that will depend on a second number you input when you vote.

    7) Thus any tampering or MITM attacks has a high probability of being picked up.

    8) For the paranoid - voting boxes and tally on paper tampering has been known to happen.

    9) So a voting SMS message that says 'You voted, your checksum is xxxxxx '

    10) leaving you phone lying around and your partner voting will not work.

    11) Extend voting vindow for electronic method

    13 This translates to barcodes and 2 large prime numbers.

  14. Adalat

    Once you have successfully passed the identification checks to vote in this electronic system, how then do you vote anonymously? Or will voting be "transparent", ie not anonymous, like our census this year?

    1. ButlerInstitute

      UK voting is not strictly anonymous. There are serial numbers that allow the ballot paper to be linked to a voter. This isn't allowed to be done without due process, though.

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