Another FOSS voting system is the EVACS project[0] published by Software Improvements for the Australian Capital Territory, which implements Hare-Clark voting (and thus also IRV/AV as a particular case), and has been audited for compliance with the ACT’s electoral law.
The code is C, under the GPL2 (not 2+), and the counting code is moderately ugly, because it is a line-for-line implementation of the manual counting process, complete with gotos. I’m not involved in the project - I was looking into an online voting system a couple of years ago but the client dropped the idea because of ballot integrity issues. [0] http://www.softimp.com.au/evacs/ On 31 Jan 2014, at 18:59 , Eduardo Robles Elvira <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello people: > > Glad to read some other people working in libre software voting systems. > As I have commented other times in here, I work in an open-source voting > system too [0] [1] [2]. I'd like to bring your attention to two key points: > > * There are few grants to apply for a voting system as far as I have > seen. We tried to do a FP7 european project (working with ~7 other > european entities like universities, companies, NGO, etc), which took a > lot of work and it's very difficult to get - and as we were novices, we > didn't get it. We also applied to some Knight Foundation funds but we > also didn't get it. > > The focus is usually in either opendata/transparency or the developing > world, so an electronic voting system is usually not really a best-fit > and because there's a lot of competition, you don't get the grant. > > I believe it's important to raise awareness about this because > developing a secure open-source electronic voting system requires a lot > of effort and I think it has a lot of benefits for society. And you > don't really want to end up privatizing e-democracy, or using democratic > tools without any or good enough security measures. > > BTW, I'm not thinking just about elections, we need to develop > democratic tools for the whole community decision-making thing: > filtering options, discussion, collaborative proposal ellaboration. We > have tons of ideas about that in AgoraVoting [3] [4], we just don't have > the resources. > > * If you want to have do many kinds of tallies, you should check the > openstv library [5]. It's written in python, unittested with real > election data, and it supports a lot of voting systems: approval, Borda, > Condorcet, IRV, and all kinds of STV methods. > > * A lot of successful open-source tools privatize their source code. > For example, openstv closed their source code in 2011 and now we have to > host in out github account [5] a copy of that and support it ourselves. > That also happened to us with verificatum [6], a provably secure mix-net > we use inside our software to make secure (as defined in the academic > world) elections, and now we have to maintain it at our own risk. > > This last bullet point is probably related to the difficulty of > accessing to grant money and how difficult and time-consuming this kind > of projects are: when after years of hardwork you finally get noticed, > you say to yourself: I did it, I'll benefit from it. > > In the case of verificatum, I know a bit the author (Douglas, > world-class cryptographer), after years of work alone on a provable > election library library unique on its class, and now the monopoly > multinational Scytl [7] may use and benefit from all his work for free. > Tough decision. > > Don't worry, we won't ever do that with Agora ;-) > > Regards, > -- > [0] https://agoravoting.com > [1] https://github.com/agoraciudadana/agora-ciudadana > [2] http://groups.google.com/group/agora-ciudadana-devel > [3] > https://blog.agoravoting.com/index.php/2013/07/07/open-proposal-elaboration/ > [4] https://blog.agoravoting.com/index.php/2013/12/15/liquid-filtering/ > [5] https://github.com/agoraciudadana/openstv > [6] https://github.com/agoraciudadana/verificatum > [7] Scytl is such a monopoly in elections that they even state in their > website that they do 87% of online-elections world-wide > http://www.scytl.com/products/election-day/scytl-online-voting/ > > On 31/01/14 04:44, Chris Csikszentmihalyi wrote: >> Mitch, >> >> Echoing Peter, there's a lot of ink spilled about various preferential >> voting systems, including rank, multi-stage, etc. Benjamin Mako Hill, who >> may well be on this list and many of you probably know, did a project in my >> research group at MIT to develop both a preferential voting library and an >> example app called selectricity (currently unmaintained). >> http://rubyvote.rubyforge.org/ >> https://gitorious.org/selectricity >> >> What was great about Selectricity was that one could choose from about half >> a dozen election methods, including plurality, Condorcet, Schultze, etc., >> but also see what the election would have resulted in if another method had >> been used. Selectricity was used by a variety of unions, student groups, >> etc. to do board votes, etc. One election for the board of Students for >> Free Culture was a great example, in that the Schultze method (also used by >> Debian) was chosen, and resulted in a completely different set of board >> members being elected than plurality had been used. >> >> The shorthand we used to describe its difference from plurality: 10 people >> want to go to lunch. Half really prefer Szechuan food, and hate Northern >> Italian cuisine. Half crave Italian the most but hate Szechuan. But all >> of them would choose Thai food for their second choice, and really like it >> a lot. In plurality voting, _no one would ever eat Thai_. >> >> Anyway, feel free to look at the code bases -- I think riseup used rubyvote >> in one of their projects? -- and note: it was developed in part with Knight >> Foundation funding! >> >> Chris. >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 7:14 PM, Peter Lindener >> <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> Hi >>> Mitch- >>> >>> I went to your sight's URL and git hub repository.... >>> >>> I did not dive into your web sight's code.... But I'm wondering if >>> there is any consideration by way of the algebraic dependencys of Von >>> Neumann and Morgenstern expected utility >>> theorem,<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenstern_utility_theorem> >>> it can be proven that a well formed Cardinal Ranked Choice voting system >>> is nessisary for all voter's to be consistently represented over the full >>> space of potential Social Decsion outcomes. >>> >>> Does your web sight utilize this kind of Ranked Choice voter >>> prioritized preference ballot?.... If not, how might your system in any >>> real sense take into account every voters secondary preferences if they >>> happen not to win there first? >>> >>> There is more to the Social Decision Systems problem, but lets start >>> with the basics.... without a Social Choice Function's having access to >>> the entire Cardianl ranked choice preference priorities of each and every >>> voter, it would be impossible for a voting function to consistently >>> represent each voter by attempting to maximize the expected personal >>> utility of each and every voter over the probability space of all possible >>> outcomes... >>> >>> What does it mean when you use the phrase "EveryVote" ? >>> >>> -Peter >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 5:39 PM, Mitch Downey <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi liberationtech, >>>> >>>> I'm applying for the Knight Prototype Fund, and I'm new to this stuff. Is >>>> there anyone here with grant experience who can offer some advice? The >>>> application is due tomorrow, January 31 before midnight. Even if you send >>>> advice for the project after the deadline, we'd appreciate the input. >>>> >>>> We're requesting funding to finish building the MVP of the open source >>>> (AGPLv3) EveryVote election and townhall meeting platform. Click the link >>>> below to check out how EveryVote could help increase voter turnout, connect >>>> constituents to representatives and candidates, and facilitate debate >>>> online. >>>> >>>> EveryVote Prototype: everyvote.org/prototype >>>> >>>> Our intended audience for the Spring 2014 MVP is university student >>>> organization elections, such as Student Governments, Campus Activities >>>> Boards, Fraternity Councils, Homecoming King and Queen, and any other >>>> organization with elections. EveryVote group pages have to be easy enough >>>> that the Election Commissioners of the student organizations can >>>> comfortably manage the pages themselves. >>>> >>>> Also, EveryVote is dedicated to using international open government data >>>> standards, and building its software with federation to maximize the >>>> freedom and convenience of users, and also so EveryVote itself cannot form >>>> a monopoly over access to public data or public data tools. We'd also like >>>> to help educate university students about the value and challenges of open >>>> data standards and network federation. >>>> >>>> Please let us know if you have any questions, and thank you for your >>>> consideration. >>>> >>>> Mitch Downey >>>> contactus {at} everyvote [dot] org >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations >>>> of list guidelines will get you moderated: >>>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. >>>> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at >>>> [email protected]. >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations >>> of list guidelines will get you moderated: >>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. >>> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at >>> [email protected]. >>> >> >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Eduardo Robles Elvira +34 668 824 393 skype: edulix2 > http://www.wadobo.com it's not magic, it's wadobo! > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of > list guidelines will get you > moderated:https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > [email protected].
-- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
