The highest German court ruled just an hour ago that the use of "voting
machines" of the type used in the 2005 election to the German Bundestag
violated the German constitution. Although the ruling specifically referred to
the 2005 election and the machines used in it (in parts of the country), it
will also have to be respected in future national, federal or communal
elections; it does not forbid the use of "voting machines" in general, but will
require them to use a complete diferent concept.

The court found that the particular type of machines allowed neither (a) the
voting person, nor (b) the election helpers, nor (c) the public to verify that
their votes were counted correctly, and was therefore against the constitution
requiring the voting and vote counting to be "public" (i.e. although the
individual vote is cast secretly, the public must be able to verify that the
individual votes are counted correctly)

The type of "voting machines" used in Germany until today are embedded computers
that do not provide for a paper audit trail, i.e. the whole voting process
(where such machines were used) was fully electronic.

This is a severe blow to the voting computer industry: I expect "voting
machines" to be out of business in Germany for quite a while, being replaced by
the classic paper & pen solution again (which has still been in use in many
parts of the nation without any trouble), and I hope the industry will be under
much higher pressure to come up with a really sound solution for the next
generation of voting computers (I'm realist enough to not expect them to give
up).

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clipka wrote:
> The highest German court ruled just an hour ago that the use of "voting
> machines" of the type used in the 2005 election to the German Bundestag
> violated the German constitution. Although the ruling specifically referred to
> the 2005 election and the machines used in it (in parts of the country), it
> will also have to be respected in future national, federal or communal
> elections; it does not forbid the use of "voting machines" in general, but will
> require them to use a complete diferent concept.

Anyone have a solution for preventing voter fraud while protecting the 
privacy of individual votes?

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Anyone have a solution for preventing voter fraud while protecting the
> privacy of individual votes?

You mean, aside from the classical pen, paper, envelope & ballot box approach?

None yet that I ever heard of; doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible
though; even if it was, an acceptable trade-off might still exist.

SmartCard (or "SmartToken") approaches might allow for feasible solutions. For
example, a microchip could be integrated into ID cards (technology seems to be
heading toward this anyway), that at elections could store a digest of the vote
cast, while the election computer would store some other relevant digest.
I wouldn't be too surprised if cryptography found a set of meaningful digests
that would allow a vote to be verified later without being disclosed.

For example, I know of a protocol that allow for "documents" (like an
"electronic ballot" for example) to be digitally signed without their contents
being disclosed to the signer (through an envelope so to speak). In case you
are curious, I can dig up the details. There are quite some amazing things you
can do with cryptography (and quite some amazing ways to foul up or work around
;))

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clipka wrote:
> None yet that I ever heard of; doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible
> though; even if it was, an acceptable trade-off might still exist.

I would think that a voting machine that prints out on paper a barcode with 
the voted candidates along with human-readable text would be sufficient and 
would give all the benefits of a normal fully-electronic device. Even if you 
took the count off the device's memory, if you had a human-readable record 
of what the machine was supposed to have counted in the case of a recount, 
that the voter could look at before walking away, you'd solve 90% of the 
problems. If you want a recount, recount the barcodes. If you don't trust 
the barcodes, go through the trouble of manually translating what they say 
and comparing it against the text. I'm not sure why so many people object to 
that system other than those who want to be able to fix the elections.

> For example, I know of a protocol that allow for "documents" (like an
> "electronic ballot" for example) to be digitally signed without their contents
> being disclosed to the signer (through an envelope so to speak). In case you
> are curious, I can dig up the details. There are quite some amazing things you
> can do with cryptography (and quite some amazing ways to foul up or work around

Yeah, but nothing the voter could check personally before walking away.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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