E-voting machines RIP

Scofflaw

After a long fiasco borne without any dignity, and deeply regretted by the Irish taxpayer.

No flowers please. Donations in lieu to the Celtic Tiger Protection Society.

The last act in the fiasco - the 7,500 e-voting machines, which have cost the taxpayer a total of almost €55m, have been sold for scrap to a Carlow recycling company for the sum of €70,000:

Former Fianna Fáil Environment Ministers Noel Dempsey and Martin Cullen oversaw the decision to purchase 7,500 electronic voting machines - at a cost of €50 million.

The controversial equipment was tested during the 2002 General Election - but the system was subsequently shelved - mounting up storage fees of just under €5 million.

The Environment Minister Phil Hogan has said that the e-voting machines have a new owner,

"They have now been put up for sale and tender over the last few months and we have reached agreement with a company called KMK Metals Recycling Ltd Co. Offaly, for the purchase of those machines for recycling and reuse to the value of €70,000".

Over 22,000 additional pieces of equipment for the machines are also being disposed of as part of the deal.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/e-voting-machines-sold-for-70000-557203.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/0629/1224318968721.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0628/e-voting-machines-to-be-dismantled-and-recycled.html

Were they intrinsically a bad idea, or just badly handled?

cordially,
Scofflaw

meglome

Scofflaw wrote: »

Were they intrinsically a bad idea, or just badly handled?

cordially,
Scofflaw

I don't think it was a bad idea in principal. Fianna Fail handled it the way Fianna Fail handle things, they threw money at it and when there was some blowback they hid it and pretended it didn't happen. I find it difficult to believe they couldn't have been salvaged at some point, of course they were toxic politically so no surprise they are being scrapped.

bpb101

We just needed to ...


Spend

femur61

Why were they abandoned?

raymon

The voting machines were based on ancient microprocessor technology which could be easily hacked , and was by a team of hackers from the Netherlands. You could barely call them computer based by today terms.

But paying 50 million for glorified calculators wasn't the only problem.

Instead of scrapping them, the arrogance of Fianna Fail allowed them to be stored for years.

As we see now , the machines had no real value all along . The metal is worth more than the electronics.

So in essence we stored 7500 aluminium scrap metal boxes for five million euro.

I don't like Phil Hogan but thanks to him for ending this waste.

Dannyboy83

The €55m was worth it in order to have something which we could stick to Fianna Fail...........these e-voting machines and the associated waste of money as a result have been more of a hindrance to them than the outcome of the Mahon Tribunal, and I don't mean to sound trite, but that is the reality.

We should hang on to one of them and put it in a glass case for display in Dail Eireann - as a tangible manifestation of the recklessness of the Celtic Pyramid years.

MadsL

Was the scrapping put to tender?

(waits for corruption allegations to surface)

ednwireland

they werent voting machines ..........

they were copper futures

raymon

MadsL wrote: »

Was the scrapping put to tender?

(waits for corruption allegations to surface)

According to Rte yes . Most tenders offered to take them to the dump for free.
We were lucky to get 70 cents for them.

raymon

Now Cullen denies any part in this waste.

This FF arrogance is breathtaking.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/i-had-nothing-to-do-with-it-says-cullen-3154088.html

PCPhoto

femur61 wrote: »

Why were they abandoned?

because they didn't allow for a paper trail .... meaning the computers didnt print out your selection - which means if there was a re-count.... we would all have to vote again.

and even if they did have a print facility ...it made them just really really expensive printers - we would need to keep the votes on record (print copy)

and as was mentioned before ... could easily be hacked !! ... I wonder was there ever an investigation into why these were purchased? if not, why not ?
... who actually signed off on it and who was behind the company who sold them? also ... what other rules/laws were passed around the time of their introduction ... it could well have been a smokescreen for something else that happened.

Laminations

femur61 wrote: »

Why were they abandoned?

A good academic paper on the subject

http://www.cs.nuim.ie/~mmcgaley/e-voting/submission.pdf

Frank Grimes

raymon wrote: »

Now Cullen denies any part in this waste.

This FF arrogance is breathtaking.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/i-had-nothing-to-do-with-it-says-cullen-3154088.html

I actually thought I couldn't be surprised any more by their sheer arrogance and detachment from reality, but that just proved me wrong. It would have been nice if they asked him to comment on the last paragraph in this article, although I'm sure that would have been met with more shoulder shrugging.

Manach

The voting machines debacle is manifestation of the Big Government overspend mentally of having a bankroll from the taxpayers. Minister Hogan is the spiritual successor to that mindset.

jimmycrackcorm

I still find it bizarre how we can trust to do our personal banking online yet cannot undertake electronic voting.

The lack of willingness to progress with this prevents us from the ultimate goal of real democracy where we can vote on issues for real instead of via false proxy in the guide of elected representatives.

Littlehorny

And as usual in this country no one was brought to account or got sacked for this waste of millions of tax payers money. Dont pay your tv liscense fee or tax the car and you'll get jail, i swear your head would explode if you thought about the system too much.

raymon

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I still find it bizarre how we can trust to do our personal banking online yet cannot undertake electronic voting.

The lack of willingness to progress with this prevents us from the ultimate goal of real democracy where we can vote on issues for real instead of via false proxy in the guide of elected representatives.

I bought a calculator for 99 cent in Tesco a few months ago.

These voting machines had an aluminium box around them for 50 million

This neanderthal technology was not electronic voting by the standards of the day

Seth Brundle

raymon wrote: »

Now Cullen denies any part in this waste.

This FF arrogance is breathtaking.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/i-had-nothing-to-do-with-it-says-cullen-3154088.html

Let him deny it. Others disagree though...
(from today's Irish Times)

Sir, – In 2003, I co-authored the Labour Party report titled Electronic Voting – a threat to democracy. This report showed the many gaping holes in the proposed e-voting system. Former minister for the environment Martin Cullen chose to ignore the findings of our report and lashed out with a personal attack on the authors. He also ignored reports from independent experts including Joe McCarthy and Margaret McGaley.

Within a week of presenting our report at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government on December 10th, 2003, the order to spend €50 million of taxpayers’ money to buy 7,000 overpriced adding machines was rushed through.

Now, nearly a decade later, we are to get back €70,000 scrap value for these 7,000 overpriced calculators.

I guess the scrappage money might pay part of ex-minister Cullen’s pension this year. Where is the accountability? – Yours, etc,

SHANE HOGAN

jimmycrackcorm

raymon wrote: »

I bought a calculator for 99 cent in Tesco a few months ago.

These voting machines had an aluminium box around them for 50 million

This neanderthal technology was not electronic voting by the standards of the day

Not quite the same comparison, but then no one has really delved into how susceptible the existing paper based system is open to abuse in comparison. Indeed, for a while I, myself had been dual registered for my parents address and my home so it would have been easily possible to vote twice (albeit the 250km journey back would have made it awkward).

raymon

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Not quite the same comparison, but then no one has really delved into how susceptible the existing paper based system is open to abuse in comparison. Indeed, for a while I, myself had been dual registered for my parents address and my home so it would have been easily possible to vote twice (albeit the 250km journey back would have made it awkward).

It is a valid comparison.

The Motorola mc68000 microprocessor was developed in 1979. Just slightly more advanced than a calculator or a pencil and paper.


The eprom was easily replaceable with a hacked one to facilitate voter fraud

femur61

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I still find it bizarre how we can trust to do our personal banking online yet cannot undertake electronic voting.

The lack of willingness to progress with this prevents us from the ultimate goal of real democracy where we can vote on issues for real instead of via false proxy in the guide of elected representatives.

Raymon saind in an ealier post it was due to outdated technology, not our reluctance to embrace technology.

thebman

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I still find it bizarre how we can trust to do our personal banking online yet cannot undertake electronic voting.

The lack of willingness to progress with this prevents us from the ultimate goal of real democracy where we can vote on issues for real instead of via false proxy in the guide of elected representatives.

Because even if you hack an online banking account, you only have one account.

This effects a whole country if it gets hacked and decides policy decisions for 5 years.

Also you can undo a banking error relatively easily over undoing an election result that you find out later was tampered with. It leaves you in a political mess TBH if it is found tampering went on. Undermines the government that got elected in that election if you don't call new ones and if you do, you have to hold a new election every time there are serious suspicions of the electronic system having being interfered with.

It doesn't work without a paper back up TBH, even for things like producing pills, we require paper trails of what went on as people could die and everybody knows, you can't really trust a computer system.

Even the banking systems rarely get changed once introduced if there are no problems with the existing one and the reason for that is every introduction of software is a potential screw up just like the Ulster Bank fiasco at the moment.

Imagine something like that happening where it is votes that got lost and not transactions.

goose2005

MadsL wrote: »

Was the scrapping put to tender?

(waits for corruption allegations to surface)

Well, a councillor's nephew got a storage contract for 25 years, and he'll still get the money even afer they've been taken away. Oh, and the storage shed was built illegally, but he "somehow" got retention permission. WHat a great little country.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/370000-bill-for-empty-evoting-shed-3154087.html

gizmo555

Scofflaw wrote: »

Were they intrinsically a bad idea, or just badly handled?

They were an intrinsically bad idea. There wasn't and isn't any problem with the paper-based voting system, which is tried and tested, easily understood by the public and is transparent & auditable. The evoting system, by contrast, has none of these attributes. The two minsters Dempsey & Cullen and the Department just wanted some whizzy new gadgets.

The very first thing we were taught in systems analysis when I studied computer science in DIT was that just because a paper-based system can be computerised, doesn't mean it ought to be. The department and the ministers didn't grasp this basic point.

raymon wrote: »

Now Cullen denies any part in this waste.

At the time, he defended evoting to the hilt, including making bizarre claims on the Dáil record that the Irish Computer Society was "part of the anti-globalization movement" and that it had no expertise in computers:

The ICS insists the electronic voting system must include a paper-based voter-verified audit trail. But when asked to comment on criticisms made by the ICS in its submission to the Commission on Electronic Voting, Mr Cullen alleged the ICS is linked to the anti-globalisation movement.

"They are not accredited to anything. They have no expertise or international accreditation," the minister said on March 31. Ironically, the ICS is recognised by the Government as a body which has the power to nominate candidates for elections to the Seanad.

AlekSmart

How do the Germans vote ?

gizmo555

AlekSmart wrote: »

How do the Germans vote ?

They did use the same Nedap machines as the Irish government bought, but their use was ruled unconstitutional in 2009, because they were not understandable and transparent to ordinary voters and because election fraud would be much harder to detect.

donegal_road

I was listening to Newstalk and heard this interview concerning the e-voting machines scandal. Much of what was disclosed here, I hadn't heard before. Here is the link... Its part 2, and approx 30 minutes into the link

http://media.newstalk.ie/listenback/221/friday/1/popup

Each machine cost roughly €500 - 600 to produce. The Motorla 68000 chip you can buy for $4. Powervote Ireland went into voluntary liquidation in 2007. Link
€24 million is still unaccounted for from when the machines left Holland and arrived in Ireland.

r3nu4l

goose2005 wrote: »

Well, a councillor's nephew got a storage contract for 25 years, and he'll still get the money even afer they've been taken away. Oh, and the storage shed was built illegally, but he "somehow" got retention permission. WHat a great little country.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/370000-bill-for-empty-evoting-shed-3154087.html

I read that today and thought to myself that while I normally don't have any time for the Sindo, that one article summed up just about everything that is wrong about Ireland and how business is done in Ireland. It saddens me.

znv6i3h7kqf9ys

I know the man who bought these things. The trolleys they come with are worth €70,000 on their own so this looks like a clever move on his part but a bad deal for the tax payer

MadsL

^
I know the man that conducted the security review of these machines, he never expected they would be this costly to the State.

Markcheese

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I still find it bizarre how we can trust to do our personal banking online yet cannot undertake electronic voting.

The lack of willingness to progress with this prevents us from the ultimate goal of real democracy where we can vote on issues for real instead of via false proxy in the guide of elected representatives.

I use a computer where it's easier/cheaper better .... The e-voting machines were quicker but no more accurate and riskier ( computer crash, poor handling , poor storage as well as bad software and unlikely hacking ) what sealed their fate was no paper trail,
Basicaly pencil and paper are cheaper and more reliable, possibly a scanner system that automatically read and collated the votes would have been a better system , it won't happen now and if it ain't broke don't fix it ....

gizmo555

Markcheese wrote: »

I use a computer where it's easier/cheaper better ....

This was the thing - no cost/benefit analysis was ever done to demonstrate why e-voting was supposedly better than paper. What's the benefit of doing an election count in one day as opposed to two or three, when we only have a general election every four or five years anyway - especially if it's at the cost of the loss of public trust in the electoral process?

The one thing e-voting did unequivocally "better" was preventing spoiled votes. I remember talking to the editor of a national newspaper at the time who was at a loss to understand why Fianna Fáil were so totally gung ho for e-voting. The only plausible explanation he could come up with - apart from a bull headed refusal ever to admit having made a mistake - was that as the then largest party, Fianna Fáil was proportionately most affected by spoiled votes. In a tight election, it could be the difference between getting into power or not.

The problem with that, of course, is that while some voters may spoil their votes by mistake, many do so deliberately, as a protest or "none of the above" vote", just as they are entitled to do. The e-voting system completely prevented this.

Markcheese

Was there no way of secretly not e-voting,?
I mean could you hand in your polling card , walk to the booth-box -whatever and just not vote .... or did that scew the system ? ( I think our current paper system should have a definite none of the above tick . To show a difference between spoiled and protest votes ....)

gizmo555

Markcheese wrote: »

Was there no way of secretly not e-voting,?

No. When you presented at the polling station to vote, the polling officer would activate the machine to allow you to vote. The system would prevent you from casting an invalid vote. All you could do is not cast your vote, but in that situation the polling officer would have to deactivate the machine again, so he or she would know you hadn't voted. There was no way to abstain entirely in secret, as the paper-based system allows.

astrofool

gizmo555 wrote: »

No. When you presented at the polling station to vote, the polling officer would activate the machine to allow you to vote. The system would prevent you from casting an invalid vote. All you could do is not cast your vote, but in that situation the polling officer would have to deactivate the machine again, so he or she would know you hadn't voted. There was no way to abstain entirely in secret, as the paper-based system allows.

Well that's more a choice in how the e-voting system was designed, pencil and paper isn't needed to add a "none of the above" button.

gizmo555

astrofool wrote: »

Well that's more a choice in how the e-voting system was designed, pencil and paper isn't needed to add a "none of the above" button.

Precisely. This was just one of many extremely poor design features of the Nedap machines.

Dannyboy83

goose2005 wrote: »

Well, a councillor's nephew got a storage contract for 25 years, and he'll still get the money even afer they've been taken away. Oh, and the storage shed was built illegally, but he "somehow" got retention permission. WHat a great little country.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/370000-bill-for-empty-evoting-shed-3154087.html

Ireland is like a little African country at this stage with all the corruption.
Nothing surprises me in the corruption reported on a daily basis now.

The are only 2 things that surprises:
A) That people continue to pay tax
That some paramilitary or vigilante group have not spring up to dispense justice, since the courts won't? or can't?