Page 147 - Towards Trustworthy Elections New Directions in Electronic Voting by Ed Gerck (auth.), David Chaum, Markus Jakobsson, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y. A. Ryan, Josh Benaloh, Miroslaw Kutylowski, Ben Adida ( (z-lib.org (1)

Electronic Elections: A Balancing Act
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Argentinian judges have three times blocked the use of Brazil's DREs in official elec-
tions, in 2001, 2003 and 2005, allegedly because the machines did not allow for manual
recounts or tally audits. In Mexico the offer was turned down, if for no other reason
because some states there have been using VVPAT machines. Paraguay has been the
only other country (besides Brazil) to have yet elected, in 2003, a president using mainly
DREs (borrowed from TSE).
This leads us to ask if the “technical debate” over the use of VVPAT or DRE sys-
tems hold any bearings to democracy, or to the sovereignty of democratic states. If so,
taking into account the U.S. Secretary of State's proclaimed mission to help spread
democracy, and her pattern-fitting suggestion that Venezuela's and Argentina's are not
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“true democracies” , how would Mexico and Brazil fit in? What about the U.S. states
that have adopted VVPAT as a norm, like Venezuela, or that mention paper ballots
and ways to count them in its Constitution, like Argentina?
This question can be rephrased as one regarding the possible relations between
labels for democracy and levels of sovereignty. We can take note that Argentina's
government has, in 2005, called the bluff on high-risk, high-yield IMF-backed irre-
sponsible investments that would have otherwise choked the nation's economy. That
Mexico's 2006 presidential election is dealt with by U.S. mainstream media as some
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sort of anti-Ukraine-like story . And that the DRE-elected president of Paraguay has
sanctioned, in 2005, a law authorizing unlimited numbers of U.S. troops to station
near his country's border with Argentina and Brazil, armed with immunity to local
and international law besides guns.
Democracy can spread in different ways. Since this article aims at contributing to
constructive ways, we end by stressing our view on the importance of an electronic
voting system's design being consistent, as the empirical evidence raised here goes to
show. For those who care for their democracies in the spirit framed here, wherever
located, whatever labeled, however spread, we offer a call to beware of the rationale
behind any media-driven disparagement of common voter's right to unencumbered
election auditing. No amount of spinning can be a substitute for effective auditing, due
to the nature of the risks involved. And for those who don't, we ask to not pretend.

References

1. Brunazo, A.: The Proconsult Case (O Caso Proconsult). In: Avaliação da Segurança da
Urna Eletrônica Brasileira. Report for the III Simposium of Information Security, Brazilian
Air Force Institute of Technology, São Paulo, October 2000 (2000),
http://www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/textos/SSI2000.htm
2. Brunazo, A., Rezende, P.: Brazil’s 2000 Senate Panel Scandal, in Stupid Security Meas-
ures for Brazil’s e-Vote: Act One, Session 3. CIVILIS & Forum do Voto-E (2001),
http://www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/PIcontest/
PI2003contest-act1.htm

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“The Follies of Democratic Imperialism” http://ww.worldpolicy.org/journal/
articles/wpj05-sp/encarnacion.html
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Western mainstream media splashed the so-called “Orange Revolution”, in late 2004, in the
aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, taking for granted
charges that it was compromised by massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct
electoral fraud. Just the Opposite it did, less than two years later, with similar charges
regarding the 2006 presiential election in Mexico.