On 17 September 2012 23:40, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
Frankly, I have never trusted electoral systems that rely on computers to the point that the votes go in, a button is pushed, and a black box churns out a result. I'd be much happier with a system that can if necessary be recounted by hand so that there's a backup just in case.
+1. Oh my goodness yes.
The Open Rights Group adopted a system that was so ridiculously geeky ... I helped do the count for the last board election (i.e., typed the paper votes into a spreadsheet), I wrote the guide to how the ORG voting system works and I still don't really understand it. Don't let geeks too near the system! Perfect is the enemy of comprehensible!
(The votes and the software were made available for examination and running oneself, but that's not IMO as good as a system we can understand. But the system is specified in the ORG constitution, so we're stuck with it. http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2012/board-election-result )
- d.