The Atlantic on Australia’s iVote system

The Atlantic covers Australia’s iVote Internet voting system, as well as discussing issues with Internet voting in general.

May 20, 2022 – Lessons from the iVote meltdown by Spenser Mestel

Letting people vote from home with the click of a button is an appealing idea, …. The problem, the American Association for the Advancement of Science says, is that there’s no “evidence that any internet voting technology is safe or can be made so in the foreseeable future … All research to date demonstrates the opposite.”

New South Wales Australia invites Internet voting source code review under restrictive conditions

Here’s the good news:

The NSW Electoral Commissioner is inviting requests from individuals who have a private or academic interest and expertise in electronic voting, or a related field, to review aspects of the iVote system source code prior to the NSW State election in March 2019.

and here’s the fine print which turns this into an extremely restricted, private review of secret code:

The following conditions will also apply to any application made, or access granted, to review the iVote voting system source code:

• The iVote Voting System source code supplied to the NSW Electoral Commissioner by [for-profit Internet voting company] will only be available for review by an individual on the NSW Electoral Roll or the Australian Electoral Roll.

• The details of each review application received by the Commissioner will be shared with [for-profit Internet voting company], and may also be shared with third parties to enable the Commissioner to establish the identity and expertise of an applicant.

• The Commissioner may request the applicant to provide additional material in support of their application.

• Any successful applicant will be required to sign a Deed of Confidentiality and Privacy with both the NSW Electoral Commission and with [for-profit Internet voting company] before accessing any components of the source code for review.

• The Commissioner and [for-profit Internet voting company] reserve the right to refuse any application, including (without limitation) where an applicant works for a competitor of [for-profit Internet voting company], where an applicant is unable to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Commissioner sufficient expertise in electronic voting or a related field, or where the Commissioner considers it is not in the public interest to grant access in a particular case or in general.

So just to summarize what this is not:

• This is not open source or public source code.
• This is not an independent review.  The reviewers must be known to [for-profit Internet voting company] and must be approved by them.
• This is not a global review – you must be from Australia.
• There will be no independent reporting on the results of the review.  The Deed of Confidentiality and Privacy will almost certainly ensure that any and all results are held in secret by the NSW Electoral Commission and [for-profit Internet voting company] and that any reporting will be through their approved and almost certainly anodyne press releases.

Basically they’re asking you to do a code review (probably for free) out of some sense of public duty.  And you only get to do the review if they decide you’re “worthy”, under criteria that they control.  And the results of your review will be secret.  While this is a good PR exercise for them, and certainly more-secure code is better than less-secure code, almost all the benefits accrue to [for-profit Internet voting company].

defend Canadian electoral process from cyber threats – Minister of Democratic Institutions Mandate

In the mandate letter for Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould, she receives direction to discontinue electoral reform activities

Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.

She is also directed to defend the current electoral system from cyber threats, by working with National Defence, Public Safety, and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE).

UPDATE 2017-06-19: The CSE has released its report on Cyber Threats to the electoral process.  ENDUPDATE

In addition through her, CSE is directed to analyze security risks to Canadian political and electoral activities, and to offer advice to Canadian political parties and Elections Canada on cybersecurity.

In collaboration with the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, lead the Government of Canada’s efforts to defend the Canadian electoral process from cyber threats.  This should include asking the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) to analyze risks to Canada’s political and electoral activities from hackers, and to release this assessment publicly.  As well, ask CSE to offer advice to Canada’s political parties and Elections Canada on best practices when it comes to cyber security.

(a copy of the mandate letter is also available in Archive.org)

Given the current cyber threat environment, with documented compromises of political party systems and elections-related systems, I consider this new emphasis on electoral process cyber security to be excellent.  Having CSE release its security assessment publicly is also a very important step.

Note that in addition to Canada and the US, the Australian Prime Minister also expressed his concern about foreign actors attacking political parties.

The [Australian] Federal Government is urging Australia’s political parties to steel themselves against potential foreign cyber attacks, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull prepares to announce an unprecedented cyber security briefing for political parties to be held in Canberra early next month.

from ABC News – Government urges political parties to ‘keep themselves secure’ ahead of cyber security briefing – January 23, 2017