The last few weeks have seen a small flurry of e-voting and e-counting news in the UK. There's also been plenty going on over in the USA, Ed Felten's Freedom to Tinker remains the best way to keep up-to-date on those happenings. Back in the UK here's the latest:
Scotland
The Scottish Government have published their response to the Gould Review of the May 2007 e-counted elections which the Open Rights Group also observed. I think the Scottish Government's response is a good one, not defensive and showing an openness to the recommendations I've not seen in similar Whitehall (London) responses. Of key interest is a (slightly ambivalent) willingness to abandon e-counting for Scottish Parliamentary elections, and a desire to de-couple local and parliamentary elections. Read the responsePostal Voting
Judge Richard Mawrey has yet another election fraud case, and once again produces a superb sound-bite, this stating that postal voting is "lethal to the democratic process" making "wholesale electoral fraud both easy and profitable". Mawrey had found a Tory councillor guilty of postal vote fraud, stripping them of their seat in Slough. Ian Brown has a nice little post on this, linking to coverage in The Times. John Morrison also is a voice of reason in a Commentisfree column. Anyone with any experience of the electoral systems knows how many weaknesses it has - it's an ongoing outrage that the Government allows this status-quo.In Parliament
Eric Pickles has asked a couple of good questions on e-voting and e-counting, here and here.