[E-voting] ICTE REJECTS MINISTER CULLEN'S CLAIMS ABOUT EVOTING

[Margaret McGaley]

Apologies to anyone receiving this release twice. We had a slight problem 
with the mailserver at my department this morning. 

Thanks for your time,
Margaret

[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]

ICTE REJECTS MINISTER CULLEN'S CLAIMS ABOUT EVOTING

Dublin, Ireland -- Monday 1st of December -- In light of recent comments made 
by Minister Martin Cullen, Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting (ICTE) have 
again called on the government to ensure that any Electronic Voting (Evoting) 
system introduced in Ireland should be completely transparent.

At a cross-party committee meeting convened to discuss evoting, Minister 
Cullen claimed "The count software ... has an audit trail of all votes cast. 
It can produce a list with a line for each vote showing the preferences 
recorded". 

"This is missing the point," says Margaret McGaley of ICTE. "Votes in the 
proposed system are only stored electronically. The system provides a 
print-out of this electronically stored data. If, for whatever reason, votes 
were recorded incorrectly, the minister's so-called audit trail would include 
the same errors."

ICTE believes that for any evoting system to be viable it must offer the 
individual voter a paper ballot for verification at the time the ballot is 
cast. This would assure each voter that their vote is recorded correctly. As 
in the present system, paper ballots would be deposited in secure ballot 
boxes, and would act as the official record of votes cast in case of disputed 
electronic results.

"Minister Cullen has repeatedly claimed that this would endanger the secrecy 
of the ballot, but this has no basis," says Ms. McGaley. "The ballots would 
be treated in the same way as in the all-paper system. There would be no link 
between voter and vote cast. Recounts would also be done in the same way as 
in the current system, having reference to the transfers in the original 
count."

With such a 'voter verified audit trail' (VVAT), says ICTE, the citizens of 
Ireland could have considerably greater trust in the system, as independent 
verification of results would be possible. 

"It's all about transparency," says Ms. McGaley. "Our trust in the system 
must be based on real independent verifiability, and not on guarantees of 
security from the government or the manufacturers."

[notes to editors]

Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting (ICTE) [1] was formed in May of 2003. 
Margaret McGaley started a mailing list [2] in order to contact other people 
who were concerned about the threat posed by evoting. It was very quickly 
established that the group is not against evoting in principle, but that the 
system being introduced in Ireland was unacceptable. The list now has 69 
subscribers, including many computer science and IT professionals. Several 
members are politically active.

Ms. McGaley has been interviewed by journalists from the Sunday Tribune and 
the Irish Times on the subject, as well as appearing on George Hook's program 
on Newstalk106, "The Right Hook".

ICTE has the following goals:
    * to ensure that any electronic voting system introduced in Ireland meets
      the following criteria
          o includes a Voter Verified Audit Trail (VVAT) [3],
          o a booth is used, analogous to the traditional polling booth,
          o all development uses formal methods [4],
          o all source code is open to public scrutiny and audit [5].
    * to prevent the use of the Nedap/Powervote [6] system in Irish Elections
      until it meets said criteria
    * to prevent the purchase of any more equipment or software from
      Nedap/Powervote by the Irish Government unless the system being
      purchased meets said criteria.


Contacts:

Margaret McGaley completed a thesis [7] entitled ``Electronic Voting: A Safety 
Critical System'' as part of her BSc at NUI Maynooth. She is continuing that 
research as an IRCSET [8] scholar working towards a PhD at NUI Maynooth, where 
she manages the website of the Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting:
                http://evoting.cs.may.ie
Margaret is available for interview, and can be reached via email at
  mmcgaley at cs.may.ie or telephone at 087 7554023.

Dr. J. Paul Gibson is a senior lecturer in Computer Science at NUI Maynooth. 
His research interests include: formal methods and models, simulation and 
verification and transfer of formal methods to industry [4]. Paul is 
available for interview, and can be reached via email at 
  pgibson at cs.may.ie or telephone at 01 7084597

Catherine Ansboro is a Founder/Director of 2 Roscommon-based businesses and 
co-founder of a regional linux user group. Catherine is also available for 
interview, and can be reached via email at
  cansbro at eircom.net or telephone at 0907 70974

 [1] http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie/
 [2] http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie/mailing_list.shtml
 [3] http://www.free-project.org/resolution/explain.html
 [4] http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie/formal_methods.shtml
 [5] http://www.opensource.org/
 [6] http://www.election.nl/bizx_html/IVS-GB/
 [7] http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie/research.shtml
 [8] http://www.ircset.ie/

-- 
Margaret McGaley
Margaret.McGaley at redbrick.dcu.ie
http://evoting.cs.may.ie