[CLUG] RE: [E-voting] Oireachtas joint committee examining voting machines on2003/11/25

[adam beecher]

Sorry for the off-topic post. An Oireachtas committee will meet tomorrow at
2:30 to discuss electronic voting with Martin Cullen, the Minister
responsible. As people that understand technology and communications,
electronic voting in Ireland should concern you, particularly the closed and
questionable system our government wants to implement.

At least two Cork TD's - Billy Kelleher (FF, Cork North Central) and Bernard
Allen (FG, Cork North Central) - will be in attendance, so if you have a
moment please contact them to express your concerns -- you'll find contact
details on the websites below. Fax would be preferable at this late stage.

http://www.finegael.ie/Representatives/representatives.cfm?id=12&TD_Key=18
http://www.bernardallentd.com/

http://www.fiannafail.ie/td_cv_67.htm
http://www.billykelleher.com/

Here are a few suggested questions you can ask:

 - Will the Minister personally vouchsafe that testing carried out on the
Nedap/Powervote system was 100% independent?
 - Will the Minister agree to a code review and security audit by members of
the Irish developer community?
 - Will the Minister halt all spending on voting machines until this review
has taken place?
 - Does the Minister agree that a Voter Verifiable Audit Trail (VVAT) should
be manadatory for electronic voting systems?

Please bear in mind when considering this subject that if electronic voting
goes unchallenged, the government will almost certainly roll voting machines
out across the country in next year's local elections. Your money will buy
these machines -- do you know enough about them to trust them with your
vote?

The members of the committee are listed below. If there are any other
relevant TD's or senators, please contact them also. You can read more about
electronic voting in Ireland and/or browse mailing list archives discussing
the subject here:

http://evoting.cs.may.ie/

Thanks,
adam


> -----Original Message-----
> From: e-voting-bounces at lists.stdlib.net
> [mailto:e-voting-bounces at lists.stdlib.net]On Behalf Of Adrian Colley
> Sent: 24 November 2003 10:25
> To: Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting
> Subject: [E-voting] Oireachtas joint committee examining voting machines
> on2003/11/25
>
>
> According to <URL:http://www.gov.ie/oireachtas/sch-week.htm>, the
> Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government will
> meet tomorrow at 2.30pm with these agenda:
> > Discussion with Minister for the Environment and Local Government on
> > electronic voting and Presentation by Department Officials on the
> > Nedap Voting System.
>
> The members of the joint committee are:
> Bernard Allen TD (FG)		John Cregan TD (FF)
> Ciarán Cuffe TD (Green)		Eamon Gilmore TD (Lab)
> Noel Grealish TD (PD)		Seán Haughey TD (FF)
> Jackie Healy-Rae TD		Billy Kelleher TD (FF)
> Padraic McCormack TD (FG)	John Moloney TD (FF)
> Seán Power TD (FF)		Sen. James Bannon (FG)
> Sen. Cyprian Brady (FF)		Sen. Michael Brennan (FF)
> Sen. Michael McCarthy (Lab)
>
> This might be a good opportunity to enlighten some souls.  Perhaps
> someone could contact this lot on behalf of our little group,
> providing some appropriate questions for the Minister and his
> minions?  Margaret?  Catherine?  One of my local TDs is in the list,
> so I'll be talking to him before the Committee meetings; it mightn't
> be a bad idea if others here do something similar.
>
>  --Adrian.
>
> --
> GPG 0x43D3AD19 17D2 CA6E A18E 1177 A361  C14C 29DB BA4B 43D3 AD19
> http://user-aecolley.jini.org/
>