51–60 of 100 posts
Vote for it on data.gov.au https://datagovau.ideascale.com/a/dtd/AEC-Raw-voting-data/42...
The algorithm used is fairly complicated, being both preferential and proportional. (The lower house is preferential but not proportional). Here is a nifty visualization of the senate vote flows in NSW: http://www.grwpub.info/senate/nsw.svg . Essentially you need a certain number of votes to cross the line and win a seat. After winning the seat, those votes are subtracted from the party. Eventually when no parties ha…
I can say with great confidence that it is hard to implement correctly, and it would take more than a single external audit to give me confidence that the AEC's implementation is flawless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> counted by hand. By whom? Overseen by whom? Who oversees the overseers? Not to mention people make mistakes, ballots get dumped, and nobody has any evidence their vote was actually counted. Here's a long but fascinating tech talk on a real solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDnShu5V99s
I can talk about Ireland, as I've been an election observer there. The way we do it is that ballot boxes are locked and sealed with tamper-evident seals after a polling station has closed. Elections observers; including representatives from the political parties may request to add their own seals. In some particularly contentious districts this is done, but for the most part people are happy with the official seals.…
An investigation was conducted http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/Reports_On_Fede...
Rather than a police force transporting a sealed box, a commercial courier company or volunteer with their own car moved what might not have even looked like an official box (perhaps a printing firm's box) which in the end might have been thrown out in the recycling or might have been maliciously removed as the warehouse doors were left open or when a single security guard was on duty overnight.
As Mr Keelty wrote: "There is less concern for the security and integrity of Senate ballots because it is considered that they have less of an impact on the election outcome and in any event are warehoused for six years. This is a cultural problem within the AEC and it needs to be addressed. The fact that it had been thirty years since the last full recount of Senate ballots most likely added to the loss of care in routinely dealing with those ballots during the election."
I've always though the Hare Clark system is intrinsically I democratic (even though it produces reasonable results) because no one seems to understand it (certainly the people who claim to can't explain it). It's also non deterministic -- the outcome can change hassle on the order in which votes are counted (although the impact will be very small in all probability)
The whole process is in my opinion pretty easy to understand: each ballot is assigned to the candidate who is marked as the top preference and each candidates votes are counted. the candidate with the fewest votes has their ballows reassigned based on their next preference. This process continues until there are only enough candidates left to fill the number of seats. I can't see how this is nondeterministic (but would like to know it could be).
Thats appalling. As an Australian citizen, who should I call about this to voice my objection?
Try your local member. My local electorate is Fairfax so a bit of a no brainer. Edit: Before anyone points out Clive's not in the Senate, he does have a very vocal, ongoing feud against the AEC and the budget for the AEC would most likely originate in the lower house.
I'm sorry.
Given the undeniable complexity of such an algorithm, it would take more than a single audit to verify that it is secure. I don't doubt there is something up in the process somewhere, when it comes to vote redistribution I believe if not done correctly and properly tested, there could be some issues in that part alone.
Or better yet, release the data and allow academics from multiple institutions to independently run their own counts and then see if the results match up with that of the AEC's. I think that could be another way without releasing the code and verifying the results are accurate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a side show at all, it's the most important thing. By showing us the code the AEC is making the implicit commitment that this is the code running on their systems. Until they show us some code they are not even making that commitment at all - they could be running anything, they could change it every day to match their whims. My own suspicion is that they DO know of numerous problems either current or past a…
Or, as they said, the software has commercial value: http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/AEC_Services/Fee_for_service...
I've always though the Hare Clark system is intrinsically I democratic (even though it produces reasonable results) because no one seems to understand it (certainly the people who claim to can't explain it). It's also non deterministic -- the outcome can change hassle on the order in which votes are counted (although the impact will be very small in all probability)
STV used in Australia is deterministic. It does not change depending on the order in which votes are counted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
STV used in Australia is deterministic. It does not change depending on the order in which votes are counted.
You don't understand the system. Surplus votes are distributed based on preferences, so order does matter because preferences will be different from one ballot to the next. Which ballots fill a candidate's quota determines which preferences don't get assigned.
It didn't always used to be though - prior to computers, to establish the fractional vote transfers, a "sample" of surplus votes to a quote used to be randomly selected.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The AEC does publish the totals for each candidate, at each stage of the Senate count [1]. There is a PDF for each state, under the heading "Distribution of Preferences". An example for NSW is at [2] Are these numbers sufficient input, to duplicate and verify the results of the AEC software? [1] http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/SenateResultsMenu-17... [2] http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/External/Senate…
Not really the same as the raw input, because while most people vote above the line, there will be a small number who vote below the line, and the incremental count doesn't show if these were allocated correctly. The best you could do is compare the expected flow each step, based on group voting ticket, against the actual flow, and make sure the total difference does not exceed the number of below the line votes.
Edit: Antony green has an estimate used in his calculator. "At Federal election, around 95% of mainland voters, and 80% of Tasmanian voters, fill in their ballot paper using the group ticket ('above the line') voting option."
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/calculator/sena...