[liberationtech] Free and Fair Elections in Egypt

[Leslie Wu]

Ka-ping Yee at Berkeley wrote his Berkeley CS PhD thesis on secure
electronic voting technology: http://pvote.org/

Not sure if anyone has put his software into real-use yet, but I wonder how
much cost would be a factor.

The EVM-CCS10 paper prices current EVM at < $200, but we have Android
Tablets these days..

~L

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Sheila Parks
<sheilaruthparks at comcast.net>wrote:

>  Thanks, Rebecca
>
> I do agree and hope that the Egyptians won't go to the e-voting machines,
> but who knows
>
> And the experiences of the rigged elections in Egypt for the last 30 years,
> or whenever they had elections, were they always hand-counted, do you know?
>
> An election now in Egypt will be so different from when Mubarak and his
> thugs ran one, that I hope the Egyptians don't do what Steve did in his
> email, that is, turn to the past and the elections
>
> Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany have all gotten rid of their e-voting
> machines and yes, there is lots of trouble in India
>
> I do not understand how anyone could trust a machine or a computer, to
> count our votes
>
> Sheila
>
>
> At 04:25 PM 2/13/2011, Rebecca MacKinnon wrote:
>
> Important points.
>
> Still, it's not a bad idea for people trying to put together free and fair
> elections for the first time to be mindful - along with all of those core
> prerequisites you mention - of the problems emerging around the world with
> electronic voting machines.
>
> See for example this "Security Analysis of India’s Electronic Voting
> Machines" by a multi-national team of computer scientists:
>  http://www.cse.umich.edu/~jhalderm/pub/papers/evm-ccs10.pdf
>
> In the event (which may be unlikely) that the use of electronic voting
> machines is seriously proposed or considered in Egypt, these problems are
> certainly an excellent reason to stick with paper ballots.
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2011, at 3:05 PM, Steve Weis wrote:
>
> Egypt used hand-counted paper ballots in 2010 [1]. That didn't prevent
> voter intimidation or ballot stuffing, like what's apparently shown in this
> video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4HBUKkXyIc
>
> The specific mechanism of how the votes are cast is largely irrelevant
> without vote enfranchisement, safe voting locations, media freedoms,
> electoral oversight, and the ability to audit the results. Focusing on
> whether someone votes with a pen and paper, or a touchscreen is missing the
> bigger picture.
>
> [1] - "Furor Grows Over Egypt's Election Results",
> http://www.npr.org/2010/11/30/131704396/calls-grow-to-set-aside-egypt-s-election-results
>
> On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM, Sheila Parks <sheilaruthparks at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>  My blood runs cold every time I hear that, wondering if, no WHEN the US
> privatized, riggable electronic voting machine industry will try to sell
> their poisons to Egypt.
>
> The youth and geeks who organized and those millions of leaders who took
> part in Revolution know better than that, I tell myself
>
> I would really appreciate comments from you who are involved in democracy
> and technology.
>
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>  Sheila Parks, Ed.D.
>
> Founder
> Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots
> Belmont, MA 02478
> 617-932-1424
> DEMOCRACY IN OUR HANDS
>  www.handcountedpaperballots.org
> sheila at handcountedpaperballots.org
>
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