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Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

easycount.mjec.net

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Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#71

Post by nmrm »

timv wrote: post #52
3rg0s4m wrote: post #41

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 once attempted to implement the Senate counting algorithm (mostly so I could force myself to truly understand it). 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.

What's up with the yellow lines going from already-excluded parties?

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#72

Post by michaelhoney »

retroencabulato wrote: post #23
mlandauer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The algorithm is public. It's the Australian Electoral Commission's implementation of it, their software, that's used in public elections that they're calling a trade secret.

In their defence, in Section 15 of the FOI rejection letter, they mention the software is used for several fee-for-service industrial elections.

They still have copyright on the software: copying it and, say undercutting the AEC on the fee-for-service would be illegal. Far more likely that the AEC don't want to have their software open to scrutiny by politically-motivated geeks.

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#73

Post by taejo »

dwd wrote: post #60
sgryphon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do they publish how many people vote below the line? 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...

Any speculation on way Tasmania votes below the line so much more than the mainland?

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#74

Post by dwd »

taejo wrote: post #73
dwd wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they publish how many people vote below the line? 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...

Any speculation on way Tasmania votes below the line so much more than the mainland?

I would think it comes down to the number of candidates because you either number one box above the line or every box below.

With the number of candidates doubling last election, Tasmania was probably more like 90%.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/08/record-number-of...

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#75

Post by efaref »

zmmmmm wrote: post #65
gipp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point, though, is that releasing the source code under the pretense that it is the running code can create a legal obligation that what's released is what's run. No, it doesn't prevent them from running something else, but it at least creates the possibility of audits and consequences if they do so.

Thanks - this is exactly my point.

But do you even trust the compiler they use?

Computers you don't totally control are inherently untrustworthy: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

For most things it doesn't matter enough, but for deciding who gets to run the country, I think we need a higher standard.

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#76

Post by Khaine »

Tloewald wrote: post #26

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)

As someone who has lived and voted in a system that uses hare clark, let me say that it is a horrible system, and should never ever be used!

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#77

Post by toyg »

vacri wrote: post #62
retroencabulato wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian elections ARE pen and paper. The ballots are entered (by hand AFAIK) into the AEC's central system to compute the complex preference flows. Realistically, the algorithm isn't that complicated, and the ABC does a good job at guestimating it [1]. This is why it is so surprising they refuse to release it, even after the Senate passed a motion demanding its release [2]. [1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-e…

At Ruxcon last year there was a very interesting talk by an electoral systems researcher (I can't recall her name). She went through a number of electronic voting systems, and they all suck. Some more than others. The only case where she found a system that was close to acceptable was in a crypto organisation where everyone was highly technically fluent in the system. Certainly not transferable to the general public.…

>in Australia, it has about the best system possible [...] in terms of verifying the count: an AEC official does the counting, and the major parties volunteer scrutineers to challenge ambiguous voting slips

That's actually how it works in Italy as well: each poll station has an official "commission" and party-nominated "observers" who can challenge slip by slip. It's probably the fairest system one can devise, although it relies on political activism (a party without enough volunteers to cover all poll stations will likely miss out votes here and there, although this might be irrelevant depending on how winners are determined).

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#78

Post by SixSigma »

efaref wrote: post #75
zmmmmm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - this is exactly my point.

But do you even trust the compiler they use? Computers you don't totally control are inherently untrustworthy: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html For most things it doesn't matter enough, but for deciding who gets to run the country, I think we need a higher standard.

So why not also demand the object code. Then you can mistrust the hardware instead.

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#79

Post by makomk »

nmrm wrote: post #71
timv wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once attempted to implement the Senate counting algorithm (mostly so I could force myself to truly understand it). 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.

What's up with the yellow lines going from already-excluded parties?

Apparently http://www.grwpub.info/senate/ is the description that goes with that animation. The yellow lines are votes for parties that were already eliminated getting redistributed again because the party their votes had gone to is being eliminated too.

Re: Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret”

#80

Post by e12e »

__P wrote: post #57
retroencabulato wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, as they said, the software has commercial value: http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/AEC_Services/Fee_for_service...

Well if we all disagreed in closed source voting systems. Then it would have 0 value...

Lets put it to a vote. Along with the proposal to renew the contract... we'll just have to do it after the upcoming scheduled maintenance on the voting system...

Maybe there should be a provision that votes concerning the voting system uses the most conservative and/or transparent means of voting available (such as counting a show of hands, or paper slips...)?

Either way this is silly. Yes, it is hard to trust the entire system, without doing a system audit. Fundamentally, when you put your voting logic into a few opaque plastic boxes who's only interface is a green and red button, it's pretty hard to know that the system hasn't been tampered with, is secure, does what it is supposed to do, does what it did yesterday today as well... but surely opening up the source is a great start?

I'd propose a simple system based on Forth and micro-controllers, that would allow for (reasonable) analysis of the binary machine code -- perhaps with random sampling and destructive reverse-engineering testing of all of the component parts every now and then.

Then we could worry about whether the people doing the auditing were on the take or not...

Actually, how about this: for stuff like this which is presumably public voting anyway, use two flags and a high-resolution camera, coupled with face detection and signal processing to determine the vote -- along with archiving the photo with a time-stamp (and vote number/identifier) for easy (manual) auditing. Audit a random sample (with representatives from all parties doing the auditing) every now and then?

Might not even have to use facial recognition -- just have every (voting) member wear a qr-code button on their shirt...

(Then you could worry about a system that did real-time altering of the recorded image, as have been demonstrated a year back (for:eg: dynamically replacing ad boards in live sports events...)). I do believe there's distrust all the way down. Maybe we should just leave the decisions to a dictator.

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