[E-voting] ICTE WELCOMES DAMNING E-VOTING REPORT

[Margaret McGaley]

ICTE WELCOMES DAMNING E-VOTING REPORT

[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]

6th July --
Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting (ICTE) today welcomed the release 
of the
Commission on Electronic Voting's second report on the secrecy and 
accuracy of
the Nedap/Powervote e-voting system. "We are satisfied that this report
vindicates our concerns about this e-voting system, particularly the 
need for a
voter verified paper audit trail (p153,4) and the need to entirely 
replace the
vote-management section of the system (p14)" said Margaret McGaley,
spokesperson for ICTE.

In response to Minister Roche's determination to continue with the 
introduction
of this system, Ms McGaley highlighted the expense the necessary 
modifications
would entail. "We should not decide to use this system without doing a full
cost-benefit analysis both for the system as a whole, and from this 
point on.
The changes laid out by the commission are extensive. They will require a
significant investment of both time and money to implement, and we need 
to ask
if this system is worth it. The €60 million that has been spent to date 
is gone
and the futher investment of several years, and millions of euro, will not
bring it back."

"We are particularly happy to see, on page 153 and 154, that the commission
have explicitly stated that the paper system is superior to the chosen 
system
because the latter does not provide a voter verified paper audit trail." 
said
Ms McGaley. ICTE maintains that no electronic voting system can be 
trustworthy
unless it includes a paper-based voter verified audit trail (VVAT), a view
shared by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Irish 
Computer
Society (ICS). According to Fergal Daly of ICTE: "After repeated 
failures of
electronic voting systems, many states in the US are enacting laws 
mandating
VVAT. We should learn from their mistakes rather than repeating them."

[ENDS]

[NOTES TO EDITORS]

Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-voting is an independent group of over
one hundred concerned Citizens, IT & Security Practitioners, and Legal
Professionals calling for the introduction of a Voter Verified Audit
Trail with any E-voting system used in Ireland.

ICTE Website:
    http://evoting.cs.may.ie/

Archive of ICTE Press Releases:
    http://lists.stdlib.net/pipermail/e-voting_press/ 

contact (available for interview): Margaret McGaley
email: mmcgaley at cs.nuim.ie
phone: 087 755 4023



The ACM (www.acm.org) is the main international professional body for 
computer professionals. The ICS (www.ics.ie) is the Irish professional 
body for computer professionals. Both have unambiguously stated that 
VVAT is necessary for any e-voting system.

http://www.acm.org/usacm/Issues/EVoting.htm
http://www.cev.ie/upload/Fintan%20Swanton-ICS%20CEV%20Submission.doc

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