http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2342.en.html

Speakers:    	 Rop Gonggrijp

It was a bad idea anyway...

The demise of electronic voting in The Netherlands

2007 has been yet another a turbulent year in The Netherlands with regard to electronic voting. If you remember the presentation at 23c3, 2006 saw the emergence of a campaign against the use of non-auditable voting systems.

As a result, two government commissions were appointed, the OSCE monitored a national election and one Windows-based touch screen system with a GPRS-wireless card lost its approval. 2007 saw the re-approval and de-approval of this same system, on grounds that have little to do with the main problems of non-auditability and presumed insecurity. We also got the reports from the OSCE as well as from the two government commissions. For a long time, the dutch government tried desperately to keep the Nedap systems around until something new could be built. We fought back, both in the political arena and in court. This past september, government gave up, and announced decertification of the last remaining electonic voting systems made by Nedap.

This is true victory worth celebrating. But dutch people abroad can still vote over the Internet and we need to watch the new electronic voting system the dutch government seems to want to develop. And we need to make sure e-voting doesn't return as a pan-European project.