The electronic voting should be introduced, concludes a committee that over the past half-year has tested the voice response computer need to be entered. The commission opts for a stemprinter with a paper trail.
The commission will present its findings Wednesday morning in Nieuwspoort. Although the commission, which consisted of both skeptics and proponents of electronic voting, calling for the reintroduction of electronic voting, there have been some changes. In the old situation were the voices through a voice response computer recorded and added up, whereby the whole tuning process, the digital was, but that the commission finds is not a good idea. “That is not transparent and verifiable,” said the commission in a written statement. After all, it is not to verify the number of votes is manipulated.
Instead, it would be used should be of a stemprinter and a scanner. Voters give a stemprinter on which candidate they want to vote, then a ballot paper out of the printer rolls. Then state only the name of the candidate and his party, which the voter can verify that his vote correctly from the printer. The stemprinters must have easy to operate buttons and audio support to people with disabilities to enable them to give voice.
As the ballot boxes close, all ballots to be electronically counted. It would also controletellingen should take place. The advantage of a paper trail of ballots is that not only is trusted on a saved value in a voice response computer, which unnoticed could be manipulated. According to the commission, would be the stemprinter initially at elections in municipal reclassifications should be tested, and would be a nationwide roll-out in 2018 or 2019.
According to the commission, is the stemprinter ‘tamper-proof, transparent, verifiable and accessible for voters. In addition, it makes the counting of votes much faster than with paper ballots: the commission believes that the results to ten hours should be able to. Because the ballots now have to be manually counted, now it takes sometimes until well after midnight before the result is known. The municipalities have in recent years repeatedly lobbied for the reintroduction of the voice response computer.
Nevertheless, it poses a risk to the stemprinter, the commission proposes: that of electromagnetic radiation, which at a distance could be seen where someone has voted, in violation of the secret ballot. “It’s never completely prevent,” said the commission. That would be to limit the to take measures which are radiation counter. The risk that remains is according to the commission, is acceptable, weighed against the terms and conditions of the stemprinter. In addition, voting with the red pencil is also not foolproof, the commission proposes: a malicious attacker might be a camera in a voting booth can hang up.
The voice response computer was in the Netherlands for a long time, but in the general election of 2006 was the red pencil re-entered. That happened after the group Wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl had shown that the equipment used was unsafe. According to the organization, was the secret ballot is not guaranteed, because the electromagnetic radiation of the voting computers could be inferred what a person had voted, and was the outcome not to trust because very few people knew how the closedsourcesoftware of the voting machines.
The committee consisted, among others, the chairman of the Association of mayors, Bernt Schneiders, a great supporter of the voice response computer. Earlier this year, said Schneiders, the voice response computer to what it regards as fast as possible should be introduced. Also a vocal opponent of the voice response computer, Arjen Kamphuis, took a seat on the commission. In the past, he called the voice response computer to a ‘threat to democracy’. The director of security firm Fox-IT, Ronald Prins was in the commission, in addition to a professor of the Radboud University.
