[E-voting] Letter to the Public Accounts Committee

[Colm MacCarthaigh]

The PAC will shortly be reviewing the matters surrounding the Electronic
Voting PR contract. I'd like to throw in this grenade :) Comments
welcome.



A Theacta,

	I am writing on behalf of Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Voting (ICTE)
in relation to a critical issue surrounding Electronic Voting and the 
associated Public Relations contract. This letter is not concerned with the 
awarding of the Contract but rather with its conduct.

	In particular, ICTE believes that there is a very serious issue in that
Government funds were spent on a Government Information Campaign, which
broadcasters are obliged to carry, that had at its core a message that is
categorically false. We believe that if Government information campaigns are to
perform the vital service of informing the public on matters of importance,
then much more consideration and care should go into their production and that
it is not unreasonable to expect that their assertions should be
well-researched, accurate and backed up with evidence or expert opinions.

	Instead, the Government Information Campaign on Electronic Voting was
either wilfully misleading, or misleading as a result of gross incompetence.
We believe that neither situation is desirable. 

	In seeking to further our belief that such information campaigns should
be accurate, ICTE has complained to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland but
were informed that the content of Government Information Campaigns were beyond
its remit. Myself, Margaret McGaley and Adrian Colley met with the Minister for
the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr. Dick Roche T,D. on the 18th
of January and requested an investigation into the conduct of the PR campaign,
however this reqyest was flatly rejected. As such, we respectufully request
that the Public Accounts Committee take up this matter, which is essential to
ensuring accuracy in any further Information Campaigns.

	What follows is a brief account of the particulars, and the context in
which we assert the Information Campign was misleading.

	Members of ICTE, including myself, were at the Mansion House launch of
the information campaign (an event which itself seemed overly extravagant) and
had the opportunity to review the material then. The central message of the
campaign was that Electronic Voting was "Easier for everyone" and that the
public should not feel uncomfortable using electronic technology, as we use it
everyday. 

	While naturally dissapointed with this message, it is clearly a
subjective opinion, and not open to categorical refutation; that voting with
buttons rather than a pencil may be "easier" is a certain point of view, and a
not altogether invalid one. Although perhaps such opinions should have been
rendered more scientific through the use of usability surveys and research. 

	At the time it was noted by our membership that the chosen Electronic
Voting system would be easier for malicious persons to tamper with, so from our
point of view there were certain ironic truisms associated with the message.
The infamous (for omitting Fine Gael entirely and voting for Fianna Fáil on the
sample ballot imagery) information leaflet however did gloss over the debate
surrounding Electronic Voting. 

	In particular, the questions "How do I know that my vote is recorded?"
and "What happens if there is a power failure?" had seriously flawed answers.
In response to the former, the leaflet (and website) completely failed to
mention that in fact there is categorically no way to verify that a vote has
been recorded correctly by the chosen system. In response to the latter, the
answer was incorrect in that it assured that votes cast would be safe in the
event of a power failure. In fact, ICTE and other parties interested in
Electronic Voting  had identified conditions in which votes would not be safe
in the event of a power failure.

	These concerns are nothing however compared to next development of the
information campaign. By late March the main message of the Government
information campaign had chanegd from "Electronic Voting - it's easier for
everyone" to "Electronic Voting - safe, accurate and reliable".

	To put this in context, by that time members of ICTE, opposition
political parties and others had made the Government and Department aware of
categorical and undeniable safety, reliability and accuracy issues concerning
the system. Margaret McGaley of ICTE and Joe McCarthy had presented evidence to
the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local
Government outlining concerns with the system including the incredible ease
with which the counting machines were likely to be prone to basic security
problems.

	I, on behalf of ICTE, had written multiple letters [1] to Martin Cullen
T.D., then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Governmet, and a
further letter [2] to every member of the Cabinet outlining the falsehoods
being claimed of the chosen system and the debate.

	When the Commission on Electronic Voting presented its first Interim
report, it confirmed the claims of ICTE and other critics of the chosen
Electronic Voting system, going so far as to say:

  "experts retained by the Commission found it very easy to bypass electronic
   security measures and gain complete control of the 'hardened' PC, overwrite
   the software, and thereby in theory to gain complete control over the count 
   in a given constituency,"

	The report also identified numerous other problems with the system,
directly related to accuracy:

  "As the software version proposed for use at the forthcoming elections is not
   as yet finalised, it is impossible for anyone to certify its accuracy"

  "Certain of the tests performed at the request of the Commission identified
   an error in the count software which could lead to incorrect distributions of
   surpluses; there is a possibility that further testing will uncover further
   software errors"

	It is therefore critical to question, how is it that the Government
Information campaign managed to make such categorically false claims regarding
safety, accuracy and reliability? The Department and Government had been fully
informed of the faults of the system through multiple means, and as the
Commission on Electronic Voting make clear it was impossible for anyone to make
claims regarding the accuracy of a system which had not been finalised.

	This very fact had been consistently pointed out by ICTE and others at
every opportunity for the preceeding six months, and it is stretching credulity
to believe that the Department and Government were not aware of this.

	In summary, we believe that there was ample evidence and controversy at
the time making clear the serious problems in relation to security, accuracy
and reliability of the chosen system and that the assertions made in the
Government Information Campaign can only be interpretted as false. The
Department appear unwilling to investigate or remedy the situation which led to
public funds being spent on misleading information and as such we respectfully
request the Public Accounts Committee to investigate.

	Is mise le meas,

			Colm MacCárthaigh


[1] URL of letters to Cullen
[2] URL of letter to Cabinet

-- 
Colm MacCárthaigh                        Public Key: colm+pgp at stdlib.net