Linux-Based E-Voting In Brazil 302
John Sokol writes "I just heard from a good friend and Linux kernel hacker in Brazil that they have just finished their municipal election with 128 million people using Linux to vote. They voted nationwide for something like 5,000 city mayors. Voting is mandatory in Brazil. The embedded computer they are using once ran VirtuOS (a variant of MS-DOS); it now has its own locally developed, Linux-based distro. These are much nicer, smaller, and cheaper than the systems being deployed here in the US. Here is a Java-required site with a simulated Brazilian voting system. It's very cool; they even show you a picture of the candidate you voted for."
When will we have web based voting (Score:5, Interesting)
We have web based banking. Why not web based voting?
If anyone thinks I care more about who I vote for than the money in my bank accounts (and my liability for debt) they're disillusional. The politicians are all just different monkeys screeching different things that suit them. In the last election I voted for (mandatory council elections) I didn't know or care about the candidates who'd only shown their faces 2 weeks beforehand. On the ballot I wrote "Fuck them liars all. This form of democrasy a joke". Am I the only one that thinks it's hilarious that we can bank online but not vote online?
Re:Another slow news day? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, of course you could modify a linux machine as well, but with a potential army of hackers the security risks are handled much like the security in Linux: Assuming that for every one hacker that is malicious there is usually one or at least two that spot a problem and bring it to light.
IT is a trap ! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a step back from paper ballots.
Void Vote (Score:3, Interesting)
You can vote blank or null vote with that machine. That's good, but I really
want to write %#%@%$!! in the ballot sometimes.
Re:IT is a trap ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Please don't ask me for a quotation, this is not Wikipedia. Go Google.
Re:Science Fiction! (Score:5, Interesting)
Brazilian cities were able to know the election results in the same day of voting, before midnight. That's pretty damn efficient.
Furthermore, as fas as trusting or not trusting goes, voting with pen and paper is not as perfect [wikipedia.org] as one might think.
Re:Science Fiction! (Score:5, Interesting)
It has worked? I am not so sure about that, for an election to work it has to be void of frauds and offer some guaranties to the electors, like anonymity. Election are not a simple problem, in fact is a very hard one.
The elections on Brazil seem to work fine, in fact many of the "left" parties (Brazil has many political parties) felt their numbers get better after the electronic voting was installed. But the system, as it is now, gives no warranty on how the votes are counted, you have to trust it is working and has not been tampered and as far as I know the code and designs of the voting machines are not open for review by the population.
I trust that the system work, it has shown consistent numbers with the election day pools and as I said the system has been show to give results that are bad for the current government, that is the one witch could more easily tamper with the election, several times.
Re:When will we have web based voting (Score:2, Interesting)
that means that the vote isn't anonymous right?
In defence of the US (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking at this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Brazil [wikipedia.org]
About half way down it lists the result of the 2006 election : couple of points on that:
(1) There are a lot of parties (~30)
(2) They have low overall control within the parliament (15% max)
(3) The socialists are on top
E-voting or no, if the socialists were to rig the election (a) it would be obvious that they did it, (b) they would have to go all out to make any kind of difference, (c) they are unlikely to have the corporate influence necessary to pull it off and (d) there isn't much you get for it.
In the US, on the other hand, there is effectively two parties each with ca. 50% of the electorate each, so rigging the election is (a) worthwhile and (b) easy to get away with. On top of that the Republicans are very good friends with the people that make the machines, and finally, you get to be 'leader of the free world' and all your buddies get rich.
Means, motive and opportunity - right there. The interface is the least of their worries.
I'll bite (Score:3, Interesting)
First, mobile phone cameras, or any other, were forbidden in the ballot - though from my experience this was only enforced in areas where there were a reasonable possibility of people selling votes or being coerced to vote, such as in Rio de Janeiro.
Second, no one said the process was unhackable. It is just much harder to hack than a paper and pen election. It is auditable by anyone with sufficient technical expertise, and that is good enough for mosrt people who care.
And finally, shut up and at least do some research on it before calling others idiots. The voter types a fucking NUMBER, not the candidate's name. A picture appears so even people who can't read can check if they are voting right (I concede tha some elder people do take quite a long time to vote).
Re:Science Fiction! (Score:3, Interesting)
I trust it to work better than the old paper one, but the eletronic system is getting less trustworth on every election. The first version of it used a small embbebed system, with no OS, then it changed to a closed OS, then it changed to Linux (ok, better than the closed OS). It's system was entirely (hardware and softwre) verified by several specialists choosed by a transparent process, then comes the closed OS, that can't be verified, and suddenly the transparent process changes to the government just choosing someone from ABIN (brazilian inteligence agency - a known problematic body).
And just to add to the process, when the government finaly agreed to make printers pluggable to the voting machine, and plug some printers randomly, several of them were destroyed and the governemnt refused to count some votes.
Review of the voting machine by a poll worker (Score:5, Interesting)
I work at the polls here in Virginia, and we have an electronic voting machine. Here's my review of the Brazilian device compared to ours:
In any event, I think SL geeks are obvious choices to volunteer to be Officers of Election. We know the vulnerabilities of the technology, and have the necessary attention to detail to appreciate the kinds of auditing checks that need to be done to run a fair and open election.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
true facts about this system... (Score:2, Interesting)