Comments on: The fraud exceeded our expectations http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/1136 This is Zimbabwe is Sokwanele's pro-democracy activist blog. It provides grassroots news and views from Zimbabwe. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:20:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: maehara http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/1136/comment-page-1#comment-251819 maehara Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:33:18 +0000 http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/?p=1136#comment-251819 Pure electronic voting is trivially easy to subvert - there <em>must</em> be a physical paper trail to provide backup to any electronic vote. You may click on one option on the screen, but the user - or the election agent - has no way of knowing if that's what has actually been recorded on the memory card. So in addition to what True Grit suggests (memory card and electronic transmission), electronic voting booths also need to print a record of the vote and ask the voter to confirm that the printed record matches their vote. These printouts can then be stored for recount purposes. In truth, though, the only advantage of electronic voting is the speed of the count - you can have a result within minutes of the polls closing. But the real and high risk of tampering with results, to me, means it's far better to stick with paper voting...<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('251819','maehara'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> --- <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('251819','maehara','Pure electronic voting is trivially easy to subvert - there <em>must<\/em> be a physical paper trail to provide backup to any electronic vote. You may click on one option on the screen, but the user - or the election agent - has no way of knowing if that\'s what has actually been recorded on the memory card.\r\n\r\nSo in addition to what True Grit suggests (memory card and electronic transmission), electronic voting booths also need to print a record of the vote and ask the voter to confirm that the printed record matches their vote. These printouts can then be stored for recount purposes.\r\n\r\nIn truth, though, the only advantage of electronic voting is the speed of the count - you can have a result within minutes of the polls closing. But the real and high risk of tampering with results, to me, means it\'s far better to stick with paper voting...'); return false;">Quote from this comment</a></div> Pure electronic voting is trivially easy to subvert – there must be a physical paper trail to provide backup to any electronic vote. You may click on one option on the screen, but the user – or the election agent – has no way of knowing if that’s what has actually been recorded on the memory card.

So in addition to what True Grit suggests (memory card and electronic transmission), electronic voting booths also need to print a record of the vote and ask the voter to confirm that the printed record matches their vote. These printouts can then be stored for recount purposes.

In truth, though, the only advantage of electronic voting is the speed of the count – you can have a result within minutes of the polls closing. But the real and high risk of tampering with results, to me, means it’s far better to stick with paper voting…

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]]> By: True Grit http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/1136/comment-page-1#comment-251732 True Grit Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:12:42 +0000 http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/?p=1136#comment-251732 In an ideal world election voting should take place on a Direct Recording Electronic system (DRE), or E-voting by computer, by making a choice on a polling booth screen. The votes are then held on a memory card or CD and transported to a centralized location for tabulation, whilst at the same time the machines also broadcast the voting data over a modem to modem line to a central computer as a back-up and for later verification of the results. But the situation in Zimbabwe is, of course as everyone knows, not ideal. So there are paper ballots which the Zanu-PF controlled authorities simply count and rig to their advantage. However, in the March 29th elections, although they were heavily rigged by Zanu-PF, circumstances prevailed which resulted in them being unsuccessful in giving themselves victory in the party election. In the presidential election, although Morgan Tsvangirai actully received about 54% of the vote, they had to find a way to reduce this in order to announce a falsified run-off, so that Mugabe could end up (as he now has done) being victorious after all. This they achieved after five weeks delay when they released results giving Tsvangirai 47% and Mugabe 43%; a result which would require the desired run-off. The actual returns of the 29th March elections are, however, still somewhere. They are held under lock and key somewhere by the state. When the MDC, who were also able to monitor the polls, claimed soon afterwards that they had won, they were accused of 'treason', but now when Zanu-PF and Mugabe do the same thing in advance of the ZEC official results, that is acceptable and not considered treason. My question is, if the original actual returns of the March 29th presidential result (Morgan 54%) is somewhere under lock and key, couldn't someone get hold of them and verify the true results to the world? Or am I being silly?<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('251732','True Grit'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> --- <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('251732','True Grit','In an ideal world election voting should take place on a Direct Recording Electronic system (DRE), or E-voting by computer, by making a choice on a polling booth screen. The votes are then held on a memory card or CD and transported to a centralized location for tabulation, whilst at the same time the machines also broadcast the voting data over a modem to modem line to a central computer as a back-up and for later verification of the results. But the situation in Zimbabwe is, of course as everyone knows, not ideal. So there are paper ballots which the Zanu-PF controlled authorities simply count and rig to their advantage.\r\n\r\nHowever, in the March 29th elections, although they were heavily rigged by Zanu-PF, circumstances prevailed which resulted in them being unsuccessful in giving themselves victory in the party election. In the presidential election, although Morgan Tsvangirai actully received about 54% of the vote, they had to find a way to reduce this in order to announce a falsified run-off, so that Mugabe could end up (as he now has done) being victorious after all. This they achieved after five weeks delay when they released results giving Tsvangirai 47% and Mugabe 43%; a result which would require the desired run-off.\r\n\r\nThe actual returns of the 29th March elections are, however, still somewhere. They are held under lock and key somewhere by the state. When the MDC, who were also able to monitor the polls, claimed soon afterwards that they had won, they were accused of \'treason\', but now when Zanu-PF and Mugabe do the same thing in advance of the ZEC official results, that is acceptable and not considered treason.\r\n\r\nMy question is, if the original actual returns\r\nof the March 29th presidential result (Morgan 54%) is somewhere under lock and key, couldn\'t someone get hold of them and verify the true results to the world? Or am I being silly?'); return false;">Quote from this comment</a></div> In an ideal world election voting should take place on a Direct Recording Electronic system (DRE), or E-voting by computer, by making a choice on a polling booth screen. The votes are then held on a memory card or CD and transported to a centralized location for tabulation, whilst at the same time the machines also broadcast the voting data over a modem to modem line to a central computer as a back-up and for later verification of the results. But the situation in Zimbabwe is, of course as everyone knows, not ideal. So there are paper ballots which the Zanu-PF controlled authorities simply count and rig to their advantage.

However, in the March 29th elections, although they were heavily rigged by Zanu-PF, circumstances prevailed which resulted in them being unsuccessful in giving themselves victory in the party election. In the presidential election, although Morgan Tsvangirai actully received about 54% of the vote, they had to find a way to reduce this in order to announce a falsified run-off, so that Mugabe could end up (as he now has done) being victorious after all. This they achieved after five weeks delay when they released results giving Tsvangirai 47% and Mugabe 43%; a result which would require the desired run-off.

The actual returns of the 29th March elections are, however, still somewhere. They are held under lock and key somewhere by the state. When the MDC, who were also able to monitor the polls, claimed soon afterwards that they had won, they were accused of ‘treason’, but now when Zanu-PF and Mugabe do the same thing in advance of the ZEC official results, that is acceptable and not considered treason.

My question is, if the original actual returns
of the March 29th presidential result (Morgan 54%) is somewhere under lock and key, couldn’t someone get hold of them and verify the true results to the world? Or am I being silly?

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]]> By: mama http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/1136/comment-page-1#comment-251136 mama Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:19:10 +0000 http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/?p=1136#comment-251136 For those interested in using football and the world cup in particular there are several thing going on a new face book group http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?gid=13839794710&members=1#/group.php?gid=13839794710 Our Kenyan brother stood by us read this article http://allafrica.com/stories/200806181159.html and there is a petition http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/974640253<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('251136','mama'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> --- <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('251136','mama','For those interested in using football and the world cup in particular there are several thing going on\r\na new face book group\r\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/edit.php?gid=13839794710&members=1#\/group.php?gid=13839794710\r\n\r\nOur Kenyan brother stood by us read this article\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/200806181159.html\r\n\r\nand there is a petition\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.thepetitionsite.com\/takeaction\/974640253'); return false;">Quote from this comment</a></div> For those interested in using football and the world cup in particular there are several thing going on
a new face book group
http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?gid=13839794710&members=1#/group.php?gid=13839794710

Our Kenyan brother stood by us read this article

http://allafrica.com/stories/200806181159.html

and there is a petition

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/974640253

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