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Comment News in English (Score 4, Informative) 114

Some news in English about the court decision:

Finnish e-voting results annulled, municipalities to hold new elections by Electronic Frontier Finland ry (Effi), the best summary in English, IMO;
Helsingin Sanomat;
Helsinki Times;
The Brad Blog;
NewsRoom Finland;
YLE; and
Turre (the lawyers that won the case).

The voting system was provided by Tieto and Scytl. In their News Page, Scytl declares: "Scytl's Pnyx.core successfully used in local elections in Finland" Shouldn't they update this...? It is even possible that the 2% of the votes lost was due to the Pnyx.core, instead of usability issues with the voting terminals, as has been commonly assumed - who knows.

Comment Re:Non-electronic spoilage rate (Score 4, Informative) 159

In the Finnish municipal elections 2008, 0.17% of the paper votes were inadvertently spoiled (unclear marking in the ballot ticket etc.) and had to be dismissed. This can be compared with the 2% of the electronic votes lost in three municipalities in which the new voting system was piloted (see Effi's Electronic Voting FAQ, in Finnish).

The total fraction of the spoiled paper votes in the municipal elections was 0.6%. Most of the dismissed paper votes were due to a deliberate action by the voter (votes for Donald Duck - a popular candidate here!, empty ballot tickets etc.). There is no evidence to support the claim that the lost electronic votes were due to a deliberate action by the voters. On the contrary, in addition to the usability problems with the voting machines, there is evidence of system malfunctions which may have contributed to the lost votes (slow response times, freezing of the voting machines during the voting etc.). Additionally, the electronic voting did allow to cast an empty vote.

Comment Re:Bad summary? (Score 2, Informative) 366

The original Ministry of Justice announcement (in Finnish) states: "A total of 12234 electronic votes vere cast in the electronic voting pilot of the 2008 municipal elections. - -"

232 is about 2% of 12234 and therefore the summary is correct.

According to the same announcement the total number of votes in the three municipalities in which the voting system was piloted was 21073 (Karkkila 4251, Kauniainen 4843, Vihti 11979), i.e., 8839 of all voters cast a paper ballot. (The voters could choose between the traditional paper ballot and trying the new electronic system.)

Government

Finnish E-Voting System Loses 2% of Votes 366

kaip writes "Finland piloted a fully electronic voting system in municipal elections last weekend. Due to a usability glitch, 232 votes, or about 2% of all electronic votes were lost. The results of the election may have been affected, because the seats in municipal assemblies are often decided by margins of a few votes. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure, because the Ministry of Justice didn't see any need to implement a voter-verified paper record. The ministry was, of course, duly warned about a fully electronic voting system, but the critique was debunked as 'science fiction.' There is now discussion about re-arranging the affected elections. Thanks go to the voting system providers, Scytl and TietoEnator, for the experience."
Privacy

Submission + - Finnish e-voting fiasco: votes lost

kaip writes: Finland piloted a fully electronic voting system in municipal elections last weekend. Due to a usability glitch 232 votes or about 2% of all electonic votes were lost. The results of the election may have been affected because the seats in municipal assemblies are often decided by margins of few votes. But nobody knows for sure because the ministry of justice didn't see absolutely any need to implement a voter-verified paper record. The ministry was of course duly warned about a fully electronic voting system, but the critique was debunked as "science fiction". There is now discussion about re-arranging the affected elections. Thanks for our voting system providers Scytl and TietoEnator for the experience.

Feed Singing The Same Song: 1962 Article Demands Stricter Copyright To Stop Jukebox L (techdirt.com)

With the news of the latest push by the RIAA to close the "radio loophole" to squeeze more money out of their music, it's worth noting that this is really nothing new. The industry has been doing it for ages. Thanks to Tim Lee and Matthew Yglesias for pointing to an article from 1962 where (oh no!) the industry was claiming that copyright law needed to be strengthened to deal with greedy business owners who weren't paying their fair share every time their jukeboxes played a song. Apparently there was something of a "jukebox exception" in royalty rates, where jukebox owners only needed to pay for the records they bought, and not each time they were played. Luckily, the law was changed in 1976, allowing the recording industry to survive. Otherwise, it surely would have perished.

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