[LMB] Lois-Bujold Digest, Vol 30, Issue 7

[Zoe Brain]

> From: Jacki Knight <jacki at knightech.com.au>
>
> Interestingly, with the advent of computerised voting it is becoming 
> almost impossible to register an informal vote - you have to choose 
> someone on the screen or you can't finish. I guess you could just go 
> through the motions but not actually touch the screen at all.
>
> Jacki in Canberra - where it's very quiet at the moment as all the 
> pollies are at home in their electorates as we're past the halfway mark 
> now
The ACT - Australian Capital Territory - electoral commission were very insistent that voters be allowed to vote informal by the system if they deliberately chose to do so. It was one of the primary requirements.

I did some work on the system that built the 2nd generation system that will be used in this election. It uses the same technology used in making medical devices, weapons systems and satellites, where "Failure is not an option". Though if the requirements are wrong, it comes as standard equipment instead. 

The BILBY compiler translates the requirements specification (expressed in UML - Unified Modelling Language) directly into Ada-95, the language used in most satellites and commercial airliners, without human intervention. It's planned that the 3rd generation will be formally mathematically provable, by using the RAVENSCAR subset of Ada-05.

All of it is open source, of course, and the code available at the Electoral Commission website. Any voter should be able to see what's going on, a secret proprietary system can't be trustworthy.

I'm in Downer, by the way. Maybe we could meet over a beverage (Earl Grey is my tipple).

Zoe (who as a matter of fact, *is* a Rocket Scientist)