Debian GNU/Linux Used in Electronic Voting Trials

RoweM writes "The Australian Capital Terrority will use a Debian-based, GPL'd electronic voting system in elections this October. See this article, and the vendor's press release. Note, this is not Internet voting, but an electronic vote registration and counting system--you still have to go to the polling booth :)."

apt rules.

booth:~# apt-get install harrybrowne
Reading Politician Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following politicians will be REMOVED:
georgewbush dickcheney
The following NEW politiciams will be installed:
harrybrowne artolivier
0 politicians upgraded, 2 newly installed, 2 to remove and 538 not upgraded.
Need to get 2/2 politicians. After unpacking 0 will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]y
Get:1 http://http.us.debian.org stable/libertarian harrybrowne 3.04-6.1 [520kB]
Fetched 520kB in 4m26s (1953B/s)
Get:2 http://http.us.debian.org stable/libertarian artolivier 2.43-5.2 [450kB]
Fetched 450 kB in 3m52s (1985B/s)
(Reading database ... 539 politicians currently installed.)
Impeaching georgewbush ...
Impeaching dickcheney ...
Selecting previously deselected package harrybrowne.
Unpacking harrybrowne (from .../harrybrowne_3.04-6.1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package artolivier.
Unpacking artolivier (from .../artolivier_2.53-5.2_i386.deb) ...
(Reading database ... 538 politicians currently installed.)
Inaugurating harrybrowne (3.04-6.1) ...
Inaugurating artolivier (2.53-5.2) ...
booth:~#

Not open source?

Before everyone celebrates, I should point out that the articles and press release give no firm indication that the actual voting software will be free software.

There are lots of warm and fuzzy words about open source, but the only thing the article says explicitly will be GPL'ed is the OS ("platform"):

The only platform that provided robustness and voter confidence was GNU Debian Linux, with all source code released under the General Public License (GPL).

The press release refers to "ACT's Hare-Clark electoral system" and says only:

The need for high voter confidence in the system is clear. In responding to the tender Software Improvements and its subcontractors were able to cite extensive experience in the field of high integrity software. The Software Improvements solution detailed an innovative approach to meeting the many expectations the community has of this type of system.

Thanks as usual to Slashdot's editors for their insightful commentary.

concorde vote counting

What they really ought to use is Debian's method of vote counting, called concorde vote counting. A complete description can be found in The Debian Constitution [debian.org], all the way at the bottom, but in a nutshell:

1. You vote not just for one person, but you rank the candidates in order of preference. ie. Ralph Nader first, Al Gore second, dubya third (see where I'm going with this?)
2. a candidate wins by being preferred to the others the most often, as opposed to having the most votes.

Imagine how much easier it would be for third parties to actually have a chance in elections! There would be no allegations of "throwing your vote away" or picking the lesser of two evils, and a candidate couldn't win by dividing the opposition, because everyone in the opposition would prefer BOTH of their candidates to the guy on the other side. (ie. Nader wouldn't have "stolen" the election from Al Gore, because anyone voting for Nader would prefer Al Gore to dubya.)

--

Almost essential for ACT elections!

For those in the US who are used to the idea of voting for just one person, and not even having to vote - this is a very different situation:

First, all Australians MUST vote in an election. If you do not vote then you will be fined, or put in prison. This means the voter turnout and load on the system tends to be much higher.

Second, ACT elections allow you to vote preferentially. This means you not only select the first person you want, but order all the candidates in the order you'd prefer them in power. This prevents the problem in the US of Nader stealing votes from Gore (all Nader's preferences would go to Gore) and so instead of the most popular person winning, the LEAST UNPOPULAR one wins. This is a significant improvement.

Third, the system used to actually count the votes in the ACT is hellishly complex and only really understood by statisticians. I find it quite bizzare, but it seems to work.

Fourth, the ACT tends to have dozens of candidates for the positions. Partys with names like "Surprise Party" and "Party Party Party" are running and even get quite a few votes.

Fifth, less than half a million people live in the ACT so the system can really be quite inexpensive and small. The ACT itself is only a few dozen miles across so the whole logistics are incredibly differnt to the USA.

So, to summarize, the ACT elections are very different from US elections. Consider all the facts before you make a generalization about whether this would be good for all of Australia, or even the USA.

Not Online.

I know people are going to complain about this system not being an online voting system and therefore not a far enough step towards "openness" of the vote.

But as a person who was the only one of all my friends to vote in the last presidential elections, because noone else could be bothered to go and pull a bunch of levers, I think that restricting voting to offline only is a good idea. It serves to give the control of the government to those people who care enough to get their ass out of a chair and walk to the voting center. I honestly don't think that I would like all the people who didn't vote out of lazyness to be able to do so online with a few mouse clicks, because they are probably just not interested enough to make an informed decision, and might just randomly click on the boxes that they're not sure what they mean.

Something so serious as selecting your government should require the small barrier of entry that getting to the physical voting booth represents.

If you don't like the candidates

apt-get new_candidates

Uh-oh

If Floridans can't figure out paper ballots, how are they supposed to figure out how to vote with GNU/Linux??

Re:Almost essential for ACT elections!

Let me pick apart your (uninformed and unresearched) reply. Let me first state my qualifications. I lived in australia till I was just over 18. Thus, I voted there. I live in the USA, and pay a great deal of attention during the elections and voting periods.

Let me also start off by saying I have NEVER seen a more unorganised election than the last presidential election, where people waited so long to find out who their new leader was. So you just arguing that the USA system is superior is not going to cut it with me. So lets start this, shall we?

Well, that's stupid. People who don't have an opinion shouldn't have to vote. If you are just going to pick one because you don't have an opinion, you are helping no one. Those who have a strong opinion one way or another are going to vote and those who don't, well they'll just let things go.
Let me clarify (having lived there). You CAN "donkey" vote. Its still anonymous, and entries incorrectly marked (all ones), or using ticks and crosses etc etc will invalidate your vote. You *can* (in essence) vote for "nobody". HOWEVER, given that everyone HAS to vote, you have a whole lot more people who actually CARE about what it is they are voting about. Vastly more people have informed opinions, and smarter decsions (on the whole) are made.

This is also stupid. I hated Al Gore and Bush(the Environmentalist vs. the Asshole) but I really didn't want Nader in Power. Who am I going to choose. Probably the one who would do the least damage and I wouldn't even touch the one who would do the most damage or had an ideal against mine.
This is *not* a two party system, as such. There are MUCH more than two candidates! Stop thinking so US-Centric when you are talking about another countries voting system!!!

If normal people can't count it, it's too complex and too easily corrupted.
Bullshit. In 90% of situations, only number 1 and 2 votes are counted. The average of the populace can understand it, and even if they cant, there is STILL the news. Remember Decision2000? Why in the hell would you assume there wasnt soemthing like that there?

No system is perfect. I firmly believe that; so I am not saying the system in australia is better. But aimlessly saying "That's stupid" is HARDLY going to convince anyone. Not having researched your point of view or your source of information, or even the persons you were replying to is a bad move. I lived there for 18 years. I know quite a bit about the system used there, and personally, I never had a problem understanding it. I always thought the outcome was fair in most cases. In a lot of ways, it quite similarly represents the model used in the USA, but in quite substantial ways, it differs. I like those differences. You might not. But that doesnt give me the right to call your system stupid, or you the right to call mine stupid.

Please sit in the corner and catch your breath before posting about subjects you dont anything about...

---

GNU Internet Voting Project

Checkout Free Project [free-project.org] for a GNU Internet Voting System.

From their homepage:
Welcome to the FREE e-democracy project's website. We are a project dedicated to creating the GNU.FREE Internet Voting system and also advocating Free Software in e-democracy. To understand why we think it's important for e-democracy software to be Free Software which is non-partisan and non-commercial in origin see our Writings Section. GNU.FREE software is written in Java and is available from the Download Section. There is more information in the Users' Section and considerable technical detail in the Developers' Section. The GNU.FREE software suite is an official package of the Free Software Foundation's GNU project and is supported by FreeDevelopers.net and OpenElection.org. More affiliates, related sites and people are available from the Connections Section.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.

GPL help insure code integrety

Of course it does, and that is what our Australian friends have understood. They were thinking to themselves one day "Hmmm. I need a computer tool to count votes, and I need to make sure that no vendor biases the code to favor a given party. So I need to see the code. What vendor will let me see the code to insure the voting is fair, and how can I insure the public that there isn't a RNG in the code affecting their vote?" Why, use the GPL, of course! You can publish the code to the public to insure accuracy. Maybe someone will see a small flaw and fix it for you too. People can be assured their vote is being counter fairly.

Perhaps the States of the US will go this route too to help count our ballots. I never got a look at the machine code that counted those Florida ballots after all. I know there are plenty in the GPL community that would love to have a shot at the code, and to submit suggestions to the state equivalent of the NIST for enchantments of the code. Its nice to see a national government recognize the GPL can be a great asset to their problems, and they get all that code for free to boot! Save a dime and get better software! Perhaps Australia will donate a little cash to a GPL project to give back to the community as well? I am happy Australia has picked up on the GPL solution.

Re:Online voting

Bah! I'm waiting for the day when I can actually vote online.

This is a bad idea, people need to goto a voting station where the can be have some security and privacy. If voting is moved to the internet, security becomes a major issue, it has been proven many times now, when Hackers decide to break something, it ususally breaks. Also if everyone is voting online, how many people will have their spouses looking over their shoulders, or Bosses or Union Thugs ?? I don't even like the idea of electionic voting systems, because there is no paper trail, just because I click on Nader, does not mean the program will register Nader and I will have no way to prove it later.. I say go back to the printed ballot and a ink pen.