A pilot internet voting program in Washington DC for this November’s elections has been scrapped. Why? Well, officials invited hackers to give the system their “best shot”, and some university kids did – and pulled off a pretty good prank.
There’s been a number of comments circulating online that a vote for the Greens in the upcoming election is a vote for Conroy, due to the recently announced preferences deal between the Greens and Labor. Unfortunately there seems to be some misunderstanding how the electoral system for the Senate works, because nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s why.
According to the Australian Constitution, the next federal election must happen by April 16, 2011. That said, the PM has stated that we’ll be heading to the polls some time this year. It may sound obvious, but if you want to use your vote to fight the filter, you should make sure you’re enrolled and your contact details are correct on the electoral roll.
We knew how you could hack a voting machine, but California has discovered that some of its machines practically invite you to play. Machines made by Premier Election Solutions are finally under investigation for their faulty, omissive, easily alterable logs.
Instant democracy is getting closer. In 2011, Estonians will be able to elect their representatives using mobile phones. How would it work and, more importantly, will it actually work?
It’s amazing that you can fall asleep with the polls showing one thing and wake up to a world you don’t even recognise. Despite who I may have supported as of November 4th, as a fervent supporter of both democracy and touchscreen technology, I accept DRE 700:259 as the 44th President of the United States. But I’m totally using a paper ballet in 2012. [The Onion Thanks Mr. Ponies!]
Well, the election is over! Luckily, it was pretty clear from about two hours in who would be the winner this time around , so even if there were a couple of iffy voting hijinks, it wouldn’t be anything to take up to the Supreme Court. Still, some post-election voting humour never hurt anybody – check out this Rube Goldberg machine by some kids over at the University of California Berkeley and feel relieved that, unlike in 2000, it’s easy this year to laugh about this kind of stuff. [Thanks Roland!]
When I went to vote this afternoon, I was kind of disappointed to find that my location was using paper ballots. Not that I have anything against that really—other than the waste of paper it is actually pretty hard to screw up as a voter (although, once my ballot was scanned I suppose anything can happen). I guess the gadget dork in me was just hoping for a touchscreen model—despite the potential reliability issues. So, I have a two part question for you: Which voting method would you prefer? Which did you actually use?
Astronauts Michael Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff did what only four other Astronauts have done in NASA’s 50 years when they voted today—from space. Thanks to a Texas bill passed in 1997, NASA space cases are able to legally vote while they’re out of the planet on business. But how did they cast their ballot from space, you ask? Here’s the answer that Space.com got.
