My take, with a correction: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/10/turnbull_floats_evote_compulsory_id/
I was given the context lecture by a Turnbull staffer, which is typical spinner behaviour. God knows what rope political staffers have around gallery journalists' necks, that they will fall for it. RC On 10/09/13 4:28 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote: > [We didn't hear a thing about it this time, even for disabled access. > What happened to the 'next big thing'? I'd be interested in Linkers' > view of the security of evoting now - have things changed or is > Diebold still sus?] > > http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/lets-ditch-the-paper-ballots-and-go-electric-malcolm-turnbull-20130910-2thiy.html > > The man likely to be the new communications minister has suggested > Australia should consider a switch to electronic voting at federal > elections in order to cut down on informal and fraudulent voting. > > Malcolm Turnbull told ABC TV on Tuesday that Australia needed to look > at implementing electronic voting, pointing to the large number of > informal votes that were cast in the 2013 election. > > "I think this is a very, very big issue," he said. "The current > system is fraught with errors". > Advertisement > > One of the highest ever rates of informal votes was recorded in > Saturday's election. According to the Australian Electoral > Commission, the informal vote in the lower house has risen from > <http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseInformalByState-17496.htm>5.55 per cent > in 2010 to 5.91 per cent this year. This is still down on the 6.34 > per cent of informal votes cast in the 1984 federal election. > > Mr Turnbull said that while some informal votes are protest votes - > "there are some people who write 'damn you all, down with > politicians"' - the overwhelming majority of them were people making mistakes. > > An AEC analysis of informal votes cast at the 2010 federal election > found that 28.9 per cent were blank ballots and 16.9 per cent had > scribbles, slogans or other protest marks. > > The proportion of ballots that only had a '1' was 27.8 per cent, 11.8 > per cent had ticks and crosses and 9.2 per cent had non-sequential numbering. > > Mr Turnbull, who was easily elected to his Sydney seat of Wentworth > on Saturday, said he thought there was also a large number of people > who voted fraudulently, "in the sense that they go to the polling > place and say they're someone else". > > He said he thought many people who did so were voting for a friend or > relative who was away or sick - and that this was based on anecdotal > evidence he had received since first running for Parliament in 2004. > > Impersonating another voter in a polling place is a serious offence > and carries a jail term of 6 months. > > Mr Turnbull said that electronic voting could be done in a closed > network in the polling booth so that it could not be hacked from the internet. > > "I think we considerably overestimate the security of the current > paper voting system, and we also overestimate the insecurity of > electronic voting systems," he said. > > He suggested that an electronic system could point out to voters if > they were about to cast an informal vote and give them the > opportunity to correct it. > > Mr Turnbull stressed that his electronic voting suggestion was not > Coalition policy, and noted that Australian federal elections are > routinely reviewed by a parliamentary committee. > > The AEC has been monitoring electronic voting technologies for more > than 10 years. The 2007 federal election included electronic voting > trials for vision-impaired voters and for ADF and AFP personnel who > were overseas and the AEC is expected to soon release a discussion > paper on internet voting, to help public debate on the issue. > > If electronic voting - either in a localised or remote set up - was > to be introduced at the federal level, a change to the Electoral Act > would be required. > > At the state and territory-level, electronic voting measures have > also been trialled since the early 2000s. > > For example, the ACT first used electronic voting in the 2001 > Assembly election. In the 2011 NSW state election, disabled, remote > and interstate voters were able to vote via telephone and the internet. > > > > Melbourne, Victoria, Australia > jw...@janwhitaker.com > > Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how > do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. > ~Margaret Atwood, writer > > _ __________________ _ > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link@mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
