http://politics.guardian.co.uk/egovernment/comment/0,12767,1403546,00.htmlPolitical machinations
The government is keen to deploy e-voting despite evidence of ballot rigging
Michael Meacher
Wednesday February 2, 2005
The Guardian
For the first time, vote-rigging may become a serious issue at a general election - perhaps in just three months' time. With several cases of alleged vote-rigging and fraud already under investigation - in Reading, Birmingham, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire - the Electoral Commission is pressing guidelines on detecting voting fraud on senior police and election officers.
Meanwhile, the government remains keen on electronic voting and is aiming at "an e-enabled election some time after 2006". Will this raise turnout or simply increase the risk of fraud? Several pilots have been held. In 2003, six local authorities electronically counted ballot papers where votes had also been cast electronically. Surprisingly, there has been no manual checking of the e-counting results.
However, a full-blown test run of e-voting has been carried out elsewhere, with very instructive results. It shows that e-voting is neither secure nor tamper-proof, and allegations are surfacing that it may have affected the result. This dry run was the recent US presidential election.
Electronic voting machines made by the Diebold company use the Gems (Global Election Management Systems) software, which was used to count over a third of the votes in three-quarters of the states in the election. It was also used in electronic touch-screen machines predominantly employed in electoral battleground states like Florida.
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