Awesome!
I'm glad to hear about all this (independently of who's voting for whom, I like the fact that there's more voting and more enthusiasm about it).
I have to ask however, whose idea was it to hold caucuses for expatriate voters? I'd think it's a group that, by definition, is rather disperse. Having to go in person to a caucus location would by itself explain extremely low turnouts.
Thrilling news out of Indonesia.
Thanks for passing it on.
I saw a photo of the polling place because the daughter of a woman here in France voted in Indonesia and sent her mother a pix. The line of journalists & cameras was stunning.
I'm wondering if I should print more ballots for Toulouse....
We open tomorrow at noon.
Good luck Japan!
Good luck voting centers around the world!
I first read that the voting started in Indiana, and wondered why DA were voting there first...
Okay - back to work.
internet voting? Hmm - how are they securing that so that someone doesn't vote multiple times?
"Here are the results"
Uh, since when is it allowed to publish results before the end of voting???
"Indonesia - Arian"?
Sounds heretical to me. Might that be Irian?
Uh, since when is it allowed to publish results before the end of voting???
They've announced that town in NH since like forever.
Just saw on yahoo home page a great article our of Indonesia about DA primary worldwide. All us except a two sentence to Republicans abroad.
Gloria
Doug Alder : as an IT security dope the internet voteign scares teh hell out of me...what infrustructure are the yuseing...web sites are buggy to satrtwith some languages make it even worse...soem of the web languages are securiy holes in their own right(im lookign at you PHP...trust me I wrote three books on how to secure that nightmare first one is on the shelves right now). Are the yuseign java..a LITTLE more secure, but a DB crash watign to happen (due ot a bug in java/the common frame works java dose not scale well to lots of concurrent db connections unless you do soem spacific server configuration steps....both the framwork companies and sun deny the bug so its hard to get the workaround).
How are they defending agenist man in the middle attacks...session poisnining, ect ect...
the internet voteing is a very bad idea in an election as important as this one.
This was the international Chair of DA's response to internet voting questions and concerns.
*************
The authors are right on point about the difficulties of voting from abroad. A recent EAC report on the 2006 election concluded that fewer than 50% of the military allots requested actually get counted. The percentage is only slightly better for civilian ballots.
This clear indication that the current system fails to respond to the needs of overseas voters leads to disillusionment.
Democrats Abroad has tried to find solutions which address the challenges facing overseas voters. With members living in more than
a hundred countries, making the voting process open and accessible to
all is a real concern. Over the years, we have used both primary and
caucus systems, each with its dvantages and disadvantages. For
primaries, mail can be slow and courier services costly. These days,
our men and women serving in remote locations can find it difficult to get mail, and it can be near impossible to take time off to fly to a Democrats Abroad caucus.
This year, we are providing the options of voting by mail, fax, or online to all our members, and providing Voting Centers in 33 countries.
Internet voters are encouraged to print out their voted ballot before
logging out of the system. In addition, our ballots are open and
transparent, so it is possible to check that a vote is properly recorded. We maintain a specific list of voters registered to vote in the online primary, as well as lists of those who vote by fax, mail or in person. So ballot stuffing is not an issue. Additionally, representatives from each of the campaigns are welcome to be present at the tallying of ballots.
With regard to connectivity, the Internet voting period is open for a
period of time – so that voters who experience problems during a peak
hour can return at any time.
The general concerns over online voting and the risk of hacking are
inherent to this process. One reason we chose Everyone Counts as a supplier is their technology. White papers are available on their website explaining their technology more fully (www.everyonecounts.com). Everyone Counts was vetted for technology and processes along with two other companies in conjunction with the Michigan State Democratic Party, which offered online voting in 2004.
Every election has the potential for shortcomings, but we have done our utmost and believe that Everyone Counts will do likewise to ensure that this is a free and fair election.
Democrats Abroad continues to work on overseas voting. We’ve simplified the process for requesting an absentee ballot with www.VoteFromAbroad.org. We’ve worked with our colleagues in the other 55
state Democratic parties on issues covering overseas voting and voter
reform. We support legislation by Representatives Mike Honda and Carolyn Maloney on overseas voting. We have a network of voter
registration volunteers around the world and we work with local election officials and the Federal Voting Assistance Program on specific problems that arise.
For this party-run primary, we want voters abroad to have a voice and have it count, wherever they live. This is one way to see that they do.
Christine Schon Marques
International Chair
Democrats Abroad
Well, without looking at into their code (which is open so i will but it will take a while...any holes I find I will send along to them) I cannot eb positive. but they say all the right things and their modle dose put security at teh forefront....in other words it looks to be secure.
we are dealign with encrypted votes going over encrypted cahnles thsi is good. then teh votes are digitaly sidgned adn so is the softwear...this is a very good thing...im sure its not 100% secure (nothing on the web is) but if it is implemented correctly (that will take tiem to look into, but because its an open system the security communites can look into it) this will be ratehr air tight.
still leaves room for shnanaigans via DDOS and what not...but it at leastprotects the votes that make it in.
looks like its java, and they take session varis in teh URI that makes me nervious as it can lead t ovar injection attacks if the code is not sanitized properly...again I will read the code. but that will take a while.
ok they say there code is open, but i can't seem to find it...anyone know where it can be gotten?
In addition all votes are compared against a voter list manually. And people did have to pre-register to vote by internet, so we can't have sudden swells or minus tally in numbers without drawing attention and then we can easily check against the list of registered internet voters
Commenting by HaloScan
