[E-voting] Summary of meeting

[Dave Madden]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 11:56:50AM +0000, Cian wrote:
> Hm. My thoughts about this lead me to the conclusion that coming up with a
> precise description - technology, policies, procedures and all - is not really
> our job; all we can realistically do is point out what is wrong with the current
> system and why it can't be trusted as well as the one it is replacing.

Regardless of the technical justification, I think we should be very
careful about specifying an exact technical solution. (There's a reason
why politicians are often evasive.) If we were to do so, we'd have to do
so with great care and with the commitment of considerable time and
effort (and possibly money).

My own view is and has for a long time been that OptScan is the best way
to go. DRE+VVAT has serious challenges ahead of it. Not to be at all
critical of the three people who met the Minister, but reading the
write-up on the list, I did find myself thinking "Yeah, I was never
satisfied about that either".

> It is up to engineers and security/elections/policy people to figure out

As someone else pointed out, it would be great if ICTE could endorse
proposals/specifications put forward by others.

> Am I being unreasonable here?

No, but reasonableness isn't necessarily what wins elections. 

If our objective is to change policy rather than just feel good, we need
to find a politically acceptable way out for the Government. Adding VVAT
to the current system would meet that test, though it mightn't be
technically viable. (I don't know.)

OptScan's my prefered technical solution, but how can we give the
Government a way to accept it? Politics isn't fair or reasonable - it is
very unlikely that the Government will say "Sorry, we were wrong". The
concept of a sunk cost isn't an easy sell, even if they say "We don't
want to through good money after bad". If they back down, they will be
massively criticised by the Opposition for having wasted money. Such
criticism can currently be disputed ("The system's fine!") but could not
be disputed if the project were publicly abandoned.

As well as a way out, we need to motivate them to take it. I can't think
of any carrot or stick that's likely to work, especially as people's
views are usually just reinforced when they're criticised.

We should also consider the next Government. If the current Opposition
gets in, we should have gotten them to commit to our proposals
clearly, publicly, repeatedly and _in advance_. A 10 second clip in 
the Dail from Rabbitt or Kenny saying "I will scrap the current Evoting
system" would be about right!

Dave

(PS I'm a member of the PDs.)