Quebec puts the brakes on electronic voting

While the U.S. mid-term elections are going full steam ahead with a myriad of maybe-reliable and not-so-reliable electronic voting systems in place, Quebec is pulling back from its adventures in e-voting, after the province's chief electoral officer Marcel Blanchet delivered a harsh report on the 2005 municipal elections. The voting machines were used in some 140 municipalities in the province last year but, according to the report, they went down like bad plate of poutine, suffering from blackouts and transmission errors, resulting in unreliable results -- although he adds that there's nothing that can be done about the results now except to move on. He also reported that the electronic voting machines weren't any faster or more economical than manual counting. As a result of the report, Quebec's Municipal Affairs Minister Nathalie Normandeau is accepting Blanchet's recommendation that the current moratorium on electronic voting put in place after last year's elections be maintained, apparently indefinitely.

[Via Slashdot]

[Tahar @ Oct 26th 2006 12:44AM]

Exactly, they're lame.

[vic @ Oct 25th 2006 11:36PM]

im proud to be a quebecer !

[Robotron @ Oct 25th 2006 11:47PM]

You go vic!

Anyone who trusts electronic voting needs to have their head examined.

[Huge @ Oct 26th 2006 12:23PM]

Robotron, when you type your NIP for a purchase, you use an electronic system.. and the system do a substraction in your bank account. And you trust that?? you must get your head examined (sarcasm).

Dude, it's the same kind of system here, instead, it's a count (+1, +1, +1).. Make it secure as your bank and you get a trusted system.

[steveg @ Oct 26th 2006 12:14AM]

Thank goodness they have the balls to pull an obviously flawed system. We could learn lots from our northern neighbors.

[Edward K. @ Oct 26th 2006 1:20AM]

"c'mon its canada! they're practically the 51st state anyways!"

-from the movie "Canadian Bacon"

lol i just found out that we once tried to make Canada a territory of the U.S.

we invaded and burned york (present day Toronto) in the beginning of the war of 1812. haha pwned...

[Paul @ Oct 26th 2006 1:34AM]

I think you forgot the funniest "pwned" part.. when afterwards they went down and burned up Washington.. Including the White House. Ahhh good times...
As for electronic voting, I'm all for getting rid of them until at least most of these bugs can be worked out... geesh

[catachip @ Oct 26th 2006 3:22AM]

Are you crazy? The war of 1812 was the only war between Canada and the US, and Canada won. We made it to D.C. and burned down the white house. "pwned" indeed. Better get back to your homework Billy, you're history is a little rusty.

[Greg Mardon @ Oct 26th 2006 9:21AM]

Yea go canada! Us, Please dont invade us. ;)

[Edward K. @ Oct 26th 2006 9:53AM]

oh no, i knew we got our proverbial butts handed to us afterwards. i think its funny the US even tried to annex/attack them. Of course then Britain, now Canada, retailiated by burning the white house and blockading our ports etc until the US was forced to surrender...

but as far as e-voting is concerned its about time countries started taking the initiative and banning these ineffective machines

[Cameron @ Oct 26th 2006 7:07AM]

Between Edward and his BA in Revisionist Cherry Picking History� and Steve and Tahar's anti-Quebec bigotry, it's fun how we're not at all talking about, you know, the post.

[NicleT @ Oct 26th 2006 8:22AM]

Seriously, we all make electronic purchase on the web and most of the time it is secure and accurate. How come it is so impossible to make an electronic voting system that is not a a big joke ? Maybe should they turn themselves toward the same developers!

Also, Quebec's Municipal Affairs Minister Nathalie Normandeau will do nothing. She will just "consider" the report and it's gonna be put on the shelves because that clunky technology have the potential to re-elect her party...

[johnnyg0 @ Oct 26th 2006 8:51AM]

I just wish people like Steve and Tahar would actually read about other cultures before doing idiot remarks on something they know nothing about. Its people like you who gives Americans a bad reputation around the world.. oh.. you and president Bush :)

[sid @ Oct 26th 2006 9:42AM]

we just had elections here in Winnipeg, Canada. On the paper ballots you select the candidate and then feed it into a machine that electronically scans it. It's just like the machine that scanned your multiple choice exams in first year sociology. The machine counts it faster and if someone wants to contest the results, there's actually a paper trail. Why would this be so hard for everyone else to do?

[toujoursdan @ Oct 26th 2006 10:08AM]

*sigh* It would be nice to be able to read a blog without being subjected to rah-rah Americanism and thinly disguised bigotry.

BTW, the US also tried to invade and annex Qu�bec and Ontario in 1775 but were defeated at the Battle of Qu�bec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Canada_%281775%29

Regarding electronic voting - sounds like a good idea that needs MUCH more development as well as audit procedures.

[John Commenter @ Oct 26th 2006 1:45PM]

There is no such thing as a bad plate of poutine. It's like sex (for a man). The scale does not include bad. Only acceptable through fantastic.

[Fran?s La Roche @ Oct 26th 2006 5:35PM]

As Sid mentioned earlier (higher?) the solution is so simple yet people just don't seem to want to go for simplicity. As we say here, "Pourquoi faire simple quand on peut faire compliqu�" (Why do something simple when you can do it complicated)... Z'gotta be human nature?!?...

[kel @ Oct 27th 2006 10:26AM]

The problem in the municipal elections didn't lie with the voting machines themselves. In the voting location I supervised, we only had a single technical failure of the automatic voting machine in the whole day.

At 9pm sharp, when the voting ended, I had the results of the day's vote, with something like 40 "incomplete/void" votes out of 1,200. That's pretty damn accurate and quick.

The problem lied with the company in charge of the voting, who was owned by a relative of those in charge of municipal elections. They couldn't set up a server worth a damn, it kept timing out on everyone when we tried to send the updated voting list every hour. I spent a big chunk of the morning with them on the phone helping them troubleshoot the various issues they were having (being in one of the biggest voting location means I was early in getting bugs).

I'm all for electronic voting in principle. In reality though, only the relatives of those in charge profit from the system and there's still much work to be done. (Lets just say that all the laptops that were bought with election (.gov) money were then sold off and the profit went to the company directly)

[adaminc @ Oct 27th 2006 12:01PM]

Mmmmm.... poutine

[Reader11722 @ Nov 1st 2006 12:56PM]

Quebec was 'allowed' to dump electronic voting by the Zionists. Who cares about Quebec? They never invaded a foriegn land on behalf of Israel. Zionist need to fix the US election, not Canada. So while Canada is busy pleasing Israel with their Free Speech restrictions, they'll be free to steal US House elections (small scale fraud). They already stole 2 presidential elections (wide scale fraud). This is the same group that managed to legalize warrantless wiretaps, suspend habeas corpus, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon, detain demonstrators and start 2 illegal wars based on lies. The Republicans will probably lose a few seats to make it look good but maintain a majority. Then they'll invade Iran on behalf of Israel. Nonetheless, congrats, Quebec.
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