Reported fraud in Brazilian e-voting

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ed Gerck <egerck () nma com>
Date: January 22, 2007 5:06:38 PM EST
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Reported fraud in Brazilian e-voting

[Dave: for IP, thank you]

Fraud was reported in Brazil's 2006 e-voting election by an
article just published in Brazil this week by Veja [*].

The Veja text (in Portuguese) says that:

- more than 1/3 of the DREs used in the state of Alagoas
 show signs of criminal manipulation.

- the number of cast ballots stored in some DREs is less
  than the number of voters reported using those DREs.

- the totals include numbers from DREs that do not exist.

- some DREs misteriously did not register any vote.

These results, based on a report from Brazil's famous ITA
university, are not yet considered final.

Brazil has the most extensive e-voting system in the world,
in operation for more than 10 years. In the 2006 national
elections, the number of e-voters was  reported as
125,913,479, with 361,431 precincts.

But it has problems. I wrote in a recent off-line IP
discussion with S. Unger Re his posting "on e-voting",
that the system used in Brazil (as well as the ones used
in the US) need more independent assurances that each vote
counts as cast. See explanation how fraud in such DREs
is possible, and how to prevent it with more independent
assurances, at
http://www.vote.caltech.edu/wote01/pdfs/gerck-witness.pdf

It is essential that such "witness" system be integrated
with the tallying, otherwise the DRE has the only and last
word.


Best,
Ed Gerck

[*]
http://vejaonline.abril.uol.com.br/notitia/servlet/ 
newstorm.ns.presentation.NavigationServlet?publicationCode=1





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