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back to article UK watchdog calls for an end to 'piecemeal' e-voting trials

The Electoral Commission has called for the end of "piecemeal" telephone and internet voting pilots in the UK until improvements in security and testing are put in place. The independent voting watchdog said on Thursday that further trials have little merit until the government has set out a strategy for modernising the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dunno about you..

    But I'm fuckin glad I vote by paper. Computer are not secure, no matter what you think, and elections are high on the list of likely hacking targets.

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  2. Mo

    Re: Dunno about you..

    Computers *can* be just as secure as paper-based voting. It just invariably isn't in these contexts because actual computer security experts are rarely consulted at any point, or if they are their input is ignored. Instead, everything gets outsourced to somebody big, who is more often than not largely clueless.

    There's absolutely no reason why an open source, open-ended, transparent, secure electronic voting platform can't be developed: it just takes time, effort, and suitable levels of expert scrutiny. None of the challenges involved are ones which haven't been overcome in the past, after all.

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  3. Steve Sutton

    Lets h4xx0r!

    Fuck it, let's just white hat the system, so that we, the el Reg party, wins the election. Our one and only policy will be to just ban the fucking things and call a new election straight after!

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  4. Simon Greenwood

    The mystery is how some of the trials were approved in the first place

    Actually - no it isn't. The lowest bidder, a couple of weeks in Spain for someone in the council's electoral department and hey presto, something that runs Excel on Windows CE will be the arbiter of *your* democratic right.

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  5. Simon Reed

    Not just secure, but seen to be secure

    The advantage of a paper system is the physical pieces of paper. It is easier to make a lay person feel the system is secure and safe if they can 'see' the votes. It is not about whether it is certificated security experts overseeing the testing of the source code, it is whether the process can be seen by the voter to be secure.

    However, I don't see how changing away from a paper system will change anything - there still won't be much point voting. We now all know that texting in your vote is just a waste of £1 since a production assistant will win the prize. Or millions can express their view online - (including giving your contact details so it is a genuine individual's opinion) - and be disregarded. And anyway, what is the point since we now seem to have a hereditary system for appointing Prime Ministers?

    It's not apathy on our part - it's contempt on theirs.

    Selection may as well be done by a random number generator in an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet. At least it would be more open than the behind-closed-doors party representative selection process.

    None of the above: X

    Razzle, frazzle. Is the pub open yet? Good. I've just decided it's POETS day so I'm off to offer my support to the Warm Flat Bitter Party...

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