A small problem with e-voting in Italy
Some Italians may e-vote soon. Says WHO?
In and by themselves, [e-voting and online voting are dumb ideas. When they are managed secretly, they are even dumber, but this is exactly what is happening right now in Italy.
Here, it seems (*) that the italian government commission that must decide how to spend 1 M Euros for testing e-voting is composed by people nominated without public scrutiny, and keeps no records of its activities. The full story is explained in an article titled “The unknown committee that’s deciding how to make us vote electronically”.
The very existence of this “ad hoc commission to evaluate e-voting for Italians living abroad” was unknown until September 2020, when a member of the Chamber of Deputees questioned the Ministry of Interior. Following that revelation, F. Pietrosanti (*), president of the italian group for transparency and digital human rights Associazione Hermes, filed a FOIA request to know more. What he received was the list of the commission members, together with the communication that they keep no writter records of their meetings. Even funnier, in the wrong way, is the fact that it is not even clear if this committee has been officially formed to begin with.
Why this situation? Even the US, that mismanage voting in any conceivable way, have public records, and in general some public scrutiny, on how e-voting is handled.
After receiving the answer to his FOIA request, Pietrosanti publicly asked for an intervention of the italian Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic, public audits of the experts and organizations involved, and in general for more interest and active intervention on the issue by politicians. I’ll let you know when how it ends. If it ends…
Ho aggiunto qualche riflessione qui https://www.key4biz.it/in-italia-esiste-davvero-il-comitato-quantistico-sul-voto-elettronico/332220/
(*) Much of this post is taken from two threads, one on the [Nexa mailing list] (https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2020-November/019324.html) and one on LinkedIn, both by F. Pietrosanti, whom I thank for reporting the problem
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