GOVERNMENT MUST TAKE WARNINGS ABOUT EVOTING SERIOUSLY -- IRISH CITIZENS FOR TRUSTWORTHY EVOTING

[Margaret McGaley]

[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]

GOVERNMENT MUST TAKE WARNINGS ABOUT EVOTING SERIOUSLY -- IRISH CITIZENS
FOR TRUSTWORTHY EVOTING

DUBLIN, IRELAND -- Monday 10th of November -- Margaret McGaley,
spokesperson for Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting, today expressed
serious concerns about the Government's position on electronic voting.

``It's time the Government started taking the opinions of experts
seriously.  Worldwide, computer scientists and IT specialists are
warning about the dangers of electronic voting, but the Government has
dismissed these warnings without properly understanding them.''

The most worrying of those warnings is that individual voters cannot
trust that their vote is recorded and counted correctly in the new
system.

``Why should I believe that the computer is recording my vote correctly?
It is very easy to make a computer show my desired vote on its screen
but record another vote on its disk. Any new system must be at least as
difficult to tamper with as the paper-only system, and that means that
any electronic system must somehow include a physical record of votes
verified by individual voters.''

Formally, such systems are said to include a Voter Verified Audit Trail
(VVAT).  Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting (ICTE) is calling for a
VVAT to be the very minimum requirement for any voting system used in
Ireland. Examples of simple, reliable VVAT systems include: machines
which print the vote behind a protective screen and deposit it in a
ballot box, and systems which scan a ballot paper which has been filled
out by the voter. Without a VVAT no voter can be sure that their vote
has been recorded correctly, and suggestions of miscalculation or
tampering cannot be properly investigated.

Minister Cullen's claim that this feature would ``endanger the secrecy
of the ballot'' is vehemently denied by ICTE. ``No-one is proposing that
voters be allowed to take home receipts. The paper ballots would be
deposited in a ballot box. They would therefore pose no more threat to
the secrecy of the ballot than do ballots in the all-paper system.''

Catherine Ansbro, also of the ICTE, notes ``In the recent presidential
election in the USA the media has highlighted cases of possible fraud in
e-voting (e.g., 3 candidates getting elected with exactly 18,181 votes;
and vote counts that changed inexplicably overnight). Since these
systems had no VVAT there was no way of addressing these situations
after the election.'' [1]

Mr. Cullen claims that the Nedap/Powervote system being introduced in
Ireland is ``the most secure electronic system that exists in the
world''. ``This statement is shocking and absolutely unprovable'', says
McGaley ``No report to date can be said to have taken a detailed look at
the overall security of the Irish system, and those independent reports
that have been published on electronic voting systems have highlighted
serious concerns.''

[Notes to Editors]

Margaret McGaley completed a thesis [2] entitled ``Electronic Voting: A
Safety Critical System'' as part of her BSc at NUI Maynooth. She is
continuing that research as an IRCSET [3] 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
an 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

ICTE are also calling for the use of Formal Methods [4] in the
development of any evoting system used here, and for source code for all
software used in such a system to be made open to public scrutiny and
audit [5].


[1]
http://www.co.comal.tx.us/Election\_Results2002.htm
    - Federal, State, & Local Election Results
For Comal County (shows
    three republican winners with 18,181 votes
each).

http://www.deeperwants.com/cul1/homeworlds/journal/archives/000602.html

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.60.html\#subj1

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.24.html\#subj1

[2] http://www.cs.may.ie/research/reports/2003/nuim-cs-tr-2003-02.pdf

[3] http://www.ircset.ie/

[4] http://www.evoting.cs.may.ie/formal_methods.shtml

[5] http://www.opensource.org/

http://www.may.ie