[ILUG] [OT] Electronic election count

[Ciaran Mac Lochlainn]

I trust electronic banking because I know how much goes into and out of
my bank account.  I trust paper based voting because even though I don't
know how everyone else voted, I know that the guy I voted for can
nominate his supporters to look over the barrier while the count is
being done and see that there were more valid votes cast for his
opponent and that he was beaten fair and square.  I don't see the same
transparency in the electronic voting system that was used.

Ciaran

-----Original Message-----
Aengus suggested:
> At least with the existing system, nobody has
> suggested that there was anything underhand involved, but with a
process
> as opaque as the electronic system used last week, you can be sure
that
> the conspiracy theories would have abounded.

Absolutely. But such is the price of change.

I expect in 20 years time we will be wondering how we ever managed to
vote
without doing it electronically. Presumably voting by then will be done
over
the Internet using a smartcard and a linux powered fridge.

:)

FWIW I would trust electronic voting much more than the manual process,
in
the same way that I trust Internet banking over personally queueing to
manage my accounts. Of course, the electronic voting process would have
to
be much more transparent than the one used in this election.

- Matthew