"London Elects has been prevented by commercial confidentiality from publishing audits on the source code and the counting infrastructure"

B*ll*cks. There should be a law against it... blah... blah...

If source code audits get published it would be even easier to spot and claim for misappropriation of IP... how on earth... rant... nothing should get in the way of demonstrable fairness and accuracy in elections.

Hmmm... seems I picked a bad day to cut down on the fags.

Paris - because she knows what transparency means.

"Short of recounting the ballots by hand there is no way of knowing if this had a significant effect on the election,"

So why not give it a shot? This electronic counting was a trial - and surely it would need to be verified? It doesn't have to be on the same frantic scale as an election count where the result needs to be announced quickly - it could take weeks if necessary.

Or are these paid election observers just a bunch of slackers who can't see an easy way to check, so they won't bother?

There is no reason to use electronic ballots. The security and confidence in the systems are such that they should all be scrapped and good old fashioned ballots used. The advantages to electronic voting do not outweigh the risks involved. It is a sad state where an organization can say it cannot say with any confidence whether or not an election was fair in a western country.

Efros

"Short of recounting the ballots by hand there is no way of knowing if this had a significant effect on the election,"

*Bangs head on Desk* I Swear to god - These people are trying to stupid us to death!

... there is no way of knowing the outcome of the election.

Fantastic.

...how to run an election properly! And then heading off to Zimbabwe and telling that lovely Mr Mugabe that no, you can't fix an election like that

...you should do it like THIS...

Okay, two things:

ORG are a bunch of drama queens behaving like a typical bunch of puffed up self-important quango of 'liberal' geeks who have this perverse view that Only They Can Save The Entire World. And in their eyes if you disagree then you're either an idiot, evil, or coming to the end of your blood line when they get the first opportunity. Pressure Group Facism.

London Elects is a faceless body whose rather poor self examination and pre-test trials, adopting a "that'll do" mentality is now causing them some grief. Not at all sympathetic to them either.

Somewhere between these two extremes is the ability to offer electronic voting as an option, without the voter feeling watched or coerced, with worked out systems that jumped up pillocks can't crack one off about in malicious glee.

Fat chance of that happening.

and it can't be said that I'm unhappy with the result of the London election; but as other posters have pointed out it is a very sad state of affairs when the accuracy of our ballots is in question.

In my mind any election of ANY importance (ie any election...) should be done the old-fashioned way, with bits of paper being put into a box, to be counted by hand. It's the only way to absolutely ensure a fair election. AFAIC postal voting can sod off as well*- it can never truely be a secret ballot, and anyway people who can't be bothered to go to their local primary school, every 4 years, to decide who's in charge of the entire country, needs a long hard think.

*IIRC a number of my local(ish) candidates in the 2005 election were discovered 'looking after' thousands of postal votes for themselves..

Danger, I have no wish to encounter the same issues as Florida's recent election fiasco or just like Zimbabwe. The old method was fabulous because it was auditable by anyone.

Yes, the Americans really are excellent teachers. Having shown the world that it's possible to scam an election and get away with it by the simple expedient of not actually counting the votes, all sorts of countries and communities are getting in on that action. Democracy in action - dictatorial election boards (or bought-and-paid-for judges) deciding who wins, and to hell with the voters.

"London Elects has been prevented by commercial confidentiality from publishing audits on the source code and the counting infrastructure"

B*ll*cks. There should be a law against it... blah... blah...

If source code audits get published it would be even easier to spot and claim for misappropriation of IP... how on earth... rant... nothing should get in the way of demonstrable fairness and accuracy in elections.

Hmmm... seems I picked a bad day to cut down on the fags.

Paris - because she knows what transparency means.

They tried that over in the US, in fact the company went so far to say if you have an indigent body look at our code we will sue you

no better way for those in power to ensure they and their ilk stay in power

Technology is not always the answer.

Why not just pay a private company to roll a dice (in a sealed room) on our behalf, then let us know the result? The system used here seems so lacking in transparency and accountability that we'd be little worse off democratically, but presumably the price would drop by a couple of million to deliver a bit more of the ever-popular "Taxpayer value".

What we have has only a cosmetic resemblance to democracy.