Britain's EU 'Wreckers' Target UK Election
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One of their legislators was suspended for fraud. Another outraged women by saying only brainless businessmen would hire "a lady of child-bearing age." And their most prominent face is a former BBC talk show ...
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(InfoWorld) - The U.K.'s trial of e-voting and e-counting technologies during last month's local elections resulted in crashed computers and technicians scratching their heads while posing new concerns about the systems' security and reliability, a new report has concluded. In one area of England, a manual recount performed after e-counting equipment was abandoned because of delays turned up a raft of uncounted votes, said Jason Kitcat, e-voting coordinator for the Open Rights Group, which deployed observers to polling sites in England and Scotland. The group, which has been critical of e-voting and e-counting, has submitted its 64-page report to the U.K. Electoral Commission, which will publish its own report on the trials on Aug. 3. The Department for Constitutional Affairs, which oversaw the pilot programs, said it welcomed the role of observers but would reserve comment until the Electoral Commission publishes its report. The Electoral Commission also did not comment. The U.K., which embarked on a voting modernization program in 2000, held trials in 13 administrative areas in England. Scotland replaced manual counting with e-counting technologies for the first time. The government has backed e-voting technologies, including postal voting and Internet voting, to increase voter participation. Open Rights Group volunteers watched how polling stations conducted e-voting, but much of the process was opaque due to the nature of how e-voting machines work, Kitcat said. The majority of polling stations experienced technical problems, ranging from laptop problems to unreliable electronic registers, the report said. Employees of vendors whose equipment was deployed refused to interact with observers, Kitcat said. "No one would really say what was going on," Kitcat said. "It was all so mysterious." However, observers did identify potential security problems. The report includes photographs of PC workstations and hubs with open ports, a possible security risk. "Network hubs were left on the floor with power and network connections loose," the report said. "In one case in Edinburgh, a hub was observed in easy reach of attendees, with ports free lying beneath a table providing an opportunity for unauthorized access to the e-counting system's network." E-counting scanners proved finicky due to incorrect paper sizes, scanner sensitivity and trouble in handling low-quality perforations on ballots. The most curious error in e-counting occurred in a ward in Breckland, England, where voters were give two ballots: one each for district council and parish elections. Officials tried an electronic count, but came up with far fewer district ballots than parish ballots when the two counts should be roughly the same, Kitcat said. A manual recount turned up about 56 percent more district council ballots. "We haven't been given an explanation by the election official or suppliers," Kitcat said. In Scotland, observers noted that election officials could log into the e-counting software merely by scanning a bar code on their identification badges, which the Open Rights Group cited as another security concern. Some election officials were positive about using new election technologies, but "the lack of general technical understanding and knowledge about the e-counting and e-voting systems across election staff was perturbing," the report said. Â
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Jose Manuel Barroso, the incoming European Commission president, sought to rescue his 24-member executive team yesterday, on the eve of a legislative vote that could throw the EU into turmoil.
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Officials hit out at an EU report critical of April's polls, saying it was deliberately trying to incite Nigerians.
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'KGB tactics' threaten EU partnership agreement as Miliband wades into crisis over staff intimidation
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Parliament challenges conservative appointee Wednesday. PARIS For a man belittled months ago as an obscure weakling, Jose Manuel Barroso is stirring up a lot of trouble.
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Postal voting remains open to 'childishly simple' fraud, warns the Council of Europe
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What promises to be a long and bruising public relations battle ahead of Britain's panned referendum on the EU constitution began in earnest with the release of the first in a series of government missives ...
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INTERNET and telephone voting should be dumped until ministers get a grip on electoral fraud, sleaze watchdog Sir Alistair Graham warns.  (c) 2007 Liverpool Echo. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning.
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Prime Minister Gordon Brown, often  accused of being lukewarm towards the European Union, said on  Monday it would be a mistake to question Britain's EU  membership at a time of global economic problems.
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GORDON Brown will today challenge France and Germany to end the market-rigging which prevents British businesses from winning lucrative European Union contracts.
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The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, says he will complain to the European Union this week over its allocation of government contracts.
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Prime Minister Tony Blair should be kept out of Britain's referendum campaign for the European Union constitution if the Labour government wants to win it, according to a poll.
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The Russian government has accused the UK of attempting to "distort facts" in the British Council row.
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Britain should look to Europe rather than the US for its economic destiny, the French Finance Minister said yesterday as Gordon Brown launched a scathing attack on the euro system.
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London: A launch of election policies by Tony Blair's main political opponents was blown out of the water yesterday as one of their senior members defected to the British prime minister's party.
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UK Conservatives press for restrictions on immigrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania ahead of EU entry.