‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word..’

It is amazing how politicans find it impossible to simply admit they made a mistake, dump the evoting machines they wasted 50 million on, and buy a decent system with open source software and a full paper trail

Since the Commission on Electronic Voting report was leaked last weekend, it was clear that the commission agreed with the line taken by most academic and professional critics of the system – it was not safe, it could no be verified to be safe because the Commission was not given full access to the code by the supplier, and the rest of the world is going with a ‘voter verified audit trail’ – in other words a paper trail.

The sensible thing for the government to do would have been to shut up, quietly admit that Martin Cullen made yet another mistake, and spin it by announcing they would go with the Commission’s line on a paper trail, and possibly salvage some credit for setting up the Commission. Could they do that? In a word, No. All day we have had a succession of government spokesmen insisting that the Commission had said the machines were safe, and they the software could be fixed, and denying Cullen’s poor judgement.

Funnily enough, it has been pointed out to me that the company which made the evoting machines also makes most of the ATMs in use in the US – and they all have a paper trail!

Personally, I like the spectacle of the ‘count’ but more importantly I also feel that democracy, and the act of electing a government is one that is worth doing right – and it should be seen to be done right. Apparently, as well as spending 50 million on evoting machines that can be subverted in a small screwdriver and a flash card, it also costs 700,000 a year to store them. Really, pen and paper is cheaper, and easier to recheck and harder to interfere with. We have a system that works, and we should stick to it. If we ever do go with evoting, it must have a paper trail. Additionally, since we are one of the worlds largest exporters of software, we should write the damn software ourselves


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2 responses to “‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word..’”

  1. Dermot Canniffe Avatar

    I believe Mr. Cullen’s mate is the person who’s storage outfit is storing the eVoting machines while they’re deciding what to do with them. He’s raking in oodles of taxpayers money while the government ums and ahs.

  2. Mike Cosgrave Avatar
    Mike Cosgrave

    Actually, each county contracted seperately for storage of the machines, but I have heard tell of some odd contracts. Nothing on Cullen himself tho.

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