[E-voting] Minimum requirement to juge voting "technology"

[Fergal Daly]

On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 01:51:44PM +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> On Friday 10 September 2004 12:49, Colm MacCarthaigh wrote:
> I think the electoral officer should decide in the first place,
> as I assume he/she does now,
> with an appeal to a court available as a last resort.
> 
> Many of the fears on this mailing list seem to me fanciful in the extreme,
> verging on paranoia.
> In this real world one can only protect against resaonably likely dangers.

You can only _do_ what is practical to protect against fraud however you must
_legislate_ to protect against what seems fanciful now as it could become
real surprisingly quickly. Strict legislation also makes it easier to
protect against things that haven't even been invented yet.

Even the supreme court ruling makes the point that the ridiculous fears of
today could be very real in the future.

> Also, the major motivation should be to maximise 
> the number of people who vote.
> Personally, I don't think the secrecy of the vote
> is as important as people on this list seem to think.
> I don't mind telling anyone who wants to know how I voted,
> and I think that is how the vast majority of people think.

Currently it's quite unimportant but how would you feel if you were voting
in Venezuela? Or some other country with a history of oppression. We are
among the first generations in history to have the luxury of saying "I don't
mind telling anyone how I voted". This could be a historical anomaly.

We have to retain the right to secrecy even when we don't need it because if
we give it away and then find that we need it again some time in the future,
we're unlikely to get it back without a fight.

We also have to maintain an example. How could we criticise an oppressive
regime which denied secrecy to it's voters if we don't maintain it
ourselves?

> I don't think anyone is going to go to inordinate trouble
> to find out how individuals voted.
> A political party would have much better ways
> of spending their money and time.

Again, these things are only true if you qualify them with "in this country
at this time",

F