Votingcomputer-twitter-CTO-discussion

Municipal election night in the Netherlands and I was twittering back and forth about votingcomputers with another CTO while zipping along on a German ICE highspeed train. Felt very modern. Below a short conversation with someone who shares my love for Pieter Bruegel paintings.

rtolido: Voting day in the Netherlands. Back to red pencil thanks to the privacy mob. Computers are scary and unsafe blabla. [link2tweet]

rtolido: In India, even in the most rural areas without electricity, voting machines are already used for 6 years. 'Innovative' NL sticks to pencil. [link2tweet]

ArjenKamphuis: @rtolido In the Netherlands the proces of voting can be understood and monitored by *any* citizen #votingcomputers #ruleoflaw [link2tweet]

rtolido: @ArjenKamphuis Help me: we are using pencil and paper, so voting is transparant and understandable...? [link2tweet]

ArjenKamphuis: @rtolido Undetectable voting fraud with paper ballots if very difficult, as opposed to using software that most can't understand or check. [link2tweet]

rtolido: @ArjenKamphuis So let's do our book-keeping with pen & paper again, because we can't understand or check SAP..? [link2tweet]

ArjenKamphuis: @rtolido bookkeeping in individual organisations is no where near as important as the decision who runs our state. But I agree SAP can suck [link2tweet]

ArjenKamphuis: @rtolido much more on the sordid history of Dutch votingcomputers: http://bit.ly/bZ4JAg Scary that local govs in do not understand or care [link2tweet]

rtolido: @ArjenKamphuis The comic is scary too http://bit.ly/c4kmx7 a bit too much of Plato's shadow cave to me. It's on paper, so it's true..? [link2tweet]

ArjenKamphuis: @rtolido It's not about truth but about detectability of fraud. Software based voting fraud is very hard to detect, as opposed to paper [link2tweet]

I've written before (in Dutch) about the fundamental problems with voting computers. There is a broad consensus among experts that these are not trivially solvable. Blackboxvoting is a great english language resource on this issue. Votingcomputers also came up in an English interview with the Indian Centre for Internet and Society.

Some of the producers of votingcomputers keep pushing for the adoption of these technologies even though they have been banned in the Netherlands. For me the questions start with: what problems do these machines solve? What is so important that we would dare risk undetectable fraud and loss of voter-privacy? I can see none. 

On a lighter note: the Onion News reports US voting computer-leak reveals outcome presidential elections.