German Court Says E-Voting Was Unconstitutional

from the well-how-about-that dept

Thu, Mar 5th 2009 6:44pm — Mike Masnick

It still stuns us that, despite so many problems found with e-voting technologies, that elections officials in the US seem to have no problem continuing to roll them out every election time, it looks like Germany is taking a slightly different perspective. A number of readers have sent in the news that Germany's highest court hasn't just rejected Germany's use of e-voting technologies, but declared their usage in a 2005 election as unconstitutional, due to the unreliable nature of the machines and (more importantly) the fact that the black box nature of the machines made the elections not as transparent as required. That said... it also allowed the results from the election to stand, saying there was no actual evidence of mistakes. Still, perhaps other courts will start to recognize this as well: when you make the details of the election and how the results are counted totally secret, you cannot have a citizenry that believes that the election results were fair or accurate.

Filed Under: e-voting, germany

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2009 @ 8:06pm

Anonymous Says The Video Ads In The TechDirt RSS Suck.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2009 @ 8:50pm

If you don't like the ads, utilize your HOSTS file.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2009 @ 9:13pm

I'm confused Mike... You laugh at the lame ass newspapers, and rightfully so, because they don't evolve. Yet you imply that voting machines are unconstitutional and failed. As if they cannot possibly be made transparent and way more useful than paper ballots.

I happen to believe that ink can be replaced across the board and without exception.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike (profile), 5 Mar 2009 @ 10:41pm
  
  Re:
  As if they cannot possibly be made transparent and way more useful than paper ballots.
  
  I never said they can't be made open and transparent. I'm all for it if they can be. But the ones in use are NOT. I've been talking to some folks who *are* working on an open and transparent system, and I'm hoping to see their solution get some traction soon.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous C, 6 Mar 2009 @ 7:18am

transparentcy
If you want transparent voting machines make them out of Plexiglas.

Sorry i'm feeling goofy today.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- another mike, 9 Mar 2009 @ 2:51pm
  
  Re: transparentcy
  bulletproof Lexan; less susceptible to hacking.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2009 @ 8:45am

Plexiglas. That made me laugh.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Engin Amca, 9 Jun 2011 @ 2:54pm

Samsunhaber
samsunhaber samsun haber meb
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Engin Amca, 9 Jun 2011 @ 2:54pm

Samsunhaber
samsunhaber samsun haber meb
[ link to this | view in chronology ]