[kwlug-disc] Lower voter turnout?

[Russell McOrmond]

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 5:51 PM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
> I wonder if the recent trend towards lower voter turnout will be reversed on
> this federal election - there seems to be more engagement on this one these
> days.

  I don't think this is the case generally in the population, or even
specifically within the technical forums I participate in.

  I hope that this community spreads their interest outside the KWLug
community to all your friends, family, and other Canadian online
forums they are part of.   This is (or should be) exciting stuff --
both during and between elections -- that we all pay attention to more
than we have in the past.  There are also things that a technical
community like this one can contribute to politics that other
Canadians don't have the skills/knowledge/etc to do.

---------

  So, something more for this community to discuss, given the subject
discussion about voter turnout.

  What do KWLug folks think about online voting?  It was included in
the Liberal platform as a "solution" to low voter turnout.

  Do you feel voting has the same security threat model as banking,
and thus simple point-to-point encryption solves the problem?  What is
the threat model for voting, and is only third parties we don't trust
(IE: do we trust the voter and the body calculating the votes).

  Do we trust the individuals/companies that write the software for
these voting systems?  Would making all the software FLOSS solve all
the potential security threats?

  What if the same "Security" solution was used for voting as was used
for the Online Census, which only ran on specific platforms and for
which no third party security audit was allowed?

  What do people think about the Verified Voting campaign in the USA,
and do we need one here now that the Liberals have placed online
voting as a possibility within their platform?  Given what we saw in
C-32, do we expect the Conservatives to follow suit with similar
goals?

  The only Canadian site I know actively discussing these issues is:
http://papervotecanada.blogspot.com/

  Do people believe we need to stick to paper ballots, or can they
think of electronic voting or electronic assist voting systems that
have the accountability and transparency we need?

-- 
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
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