Computer experts remain sceptical about E - voting

[bob10]

Computer experts remain sceptical about e-voting | The New Daily (http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/07/11/computer-voting-warnings/?utm_source=Responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160712_TND)

[sheerluck]

Given there are already well documented issues with the current system (voter identity fraud, postal ballot tampering, insecure handling of ballot papers), would a technological solution be any worse?

[gavinwibrow]

Fair call (as a long term RO etc), but that tends to be on more of on an individual basis (why would you bother), and hopefully not as prevalent as some might believe. Certainly those involved in the counts do care (have to for the money pittance). Computerisation would be great, but the issues/dangers are still too many and to big at this stage. USA has regular issues.

[JDNSW]

The major issues with any form of computer voting are related to transparency.

For the voting procedure to be regarded as being at least as good as the paper system, for a start, all the software involved would need to be able to be shown to do what the user thinks it does in all circumstances. This implies that it would need to be open source, and note that this should include all software involved, including that on the home device used by the voter (e.g. operating system, browser and network software) and all intermediate links, although some of this requirement could be eased by accepting secure links. In addition, the software needs to provide an audit trail that allows any investigation to track what really happened to every vote. (for paper voting, this is all provided by the physical bit of paper - even if it is lost, at least it is known to be lost!)

This is just scratching the surface, really; the closer you look at the concept, the more problems appear. Certainly problems, such as identification, exist with paper voting, but they don't go away because you use an electronic system - if anything, they get worse.

John