Minister of Justice says future of electronic voting remains open

Tuija Brax: new elections possible if court says so

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Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) says that the future of electronic voting remains open.
      “Now we are collecting and studying observations from the trial. A report will be ready by late May, when we will have an overall view. If the benefit is limited to a faster vote count, we will seriously consider if it is worth continuing the trial”, Brax says.
     Electronic voting was tested in Sunday’s municipal elections in three communities: Karkkila, Kauniainen, and Vihti.
     
A review by the Ministry of Justice revealed that in addition to the 12,234 electronic ballots that were cast, there were 232 cases in which electronic voting had commenced, but had not been completed for some reason.
     The probable reason for this is that the voter had not pressed the OK key after typing in the candidate number.
      Raino Vastamäki, head of research at Adage, which is conducting a feasibility study on the system, sees a number of shortcomings in the planning process of the system.
     In his view, the equipment had not been sufficiently tested with users of the correct target group. “In a critical system, no possibility should be left for the user to make a mistake, especially when the target group is the entire Finnish population”, Vastamäki says.
     He says that the matter could have been dealt with in such a way that the voter card would come out of the device only when the voter had either confirmed his or her choice, or cancelled the vote.
     
However, Vastamäki does not want to reject the whole project, insisting that the problem can be fixed, once professionals plan and test it. “Technical risks can be a greater problem in practice.”
     Justice Minister Brax notes that the law on experimental use of electronic voting was confirmed unanimously by the previous parliament.
     “When I started out as Minister of Justice, all of the basic decisions, such as the choice of equipment, and their suppliers, had already been made. I was given an external audit for the system, after calling for one.
     
In the testing phase the members of the local election commissions felt that the terminal was easy to use, and consequently, the testers focussed on more difficult questions of data security.
     Brax said that one possible improvement would be for the voter to get a printout confirming a successful vote.
     Appeals over the elections became possible on Wednesday evening, when the municipal authorities officially confirmed the results of the elections. Brax is not taking a stand on the possibility that elections might be held again in the municipalities in which electronic voting was tried.
     “It is obvious that if a court rules that there is reason to arrange new elections, then they will be arranged. If no appeals are made, then we will stay with our original plans and assess the experiences from our trial.”
     The youth organisation of the Uusimaa section of the National Coalition Party has submitted a complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman on the electronic voting issue.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Over 200 electronic votes disappeared (29.10.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat