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Talking to representatives

Mon, 07/04/2008 - 21:21 — tony

So I went to my Senate District's convention on Saturday, and while I was there had a chance to talk to a couple of politicians about OpenDocument in governement and open source in government and schools. While the responses were fairly predictable given the environment, I thought I'd share some of my observations.

First, they hadn't really heard much about it. Some were aware that Massachusetts had done something with ODF, but didn't know the details or what that meant. They didn't flinch or look at me quizically at the mention of the term open-source, but also didn't know why it was relevant to them generally. One, however, knew that open-source was a good idea for at least one thing - voting machines. The person who was the most excited about open documents and open source was the one who chairs the education committee. While this was a party-specific event, one representative recommended that I talk to a colleague from the opposition about it, as they were more experienced technically through their non-political professional life.

So, conclusions: I should really start talking to people more - apparently not enough of that is being done. Using the voting machines issue as an introduction might be a good idea, since they've already gotten some background on that. Targeting the education sector would probably be a very wise move. Open standards and open source shouldn't be treated as a one-party proposition.

Discuss.

I have a couple more people that had already had to leave by the time I made the rounds of the room - I'll let you know if they have anything significantly different to add to those observations. Also, apparently one of my professors is going to be testifying to the legislature about the education aspect, I think in financial terms, soon, which may add some talking points here.


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Comments

Thu, 11/09/2008 - 01:46 — Anonymous

open source is a good idea for e-voting, but is e-voting good?

One, however, knew that open-source was a good idea for at least one thing - voting machines.

Tony,

I have no doubts that IF vote must happen electronically all the involved software must be open source, but... can the politicians you talked to give a real reason why e-voting should be adopted in the first place? Again, I mean a real reason, concrete proofs and numbers showing what actually important things a country gains with e-voting, from somebody who isn't a voting machine salesman. Does such a study exist?

I've been looking for such material since way before I wrote Is e-voting a solution? To which problem?, but all I've found so far are perentory but vague and unsubstantiated claims that "people WANT AND MUST know in real time who's the winner, they simply can't stand to wait a little". Is this really the only reason (not that it's a valid one, of course)?

Thanks,
M. Fioretti

see also www.electronic-voting.org (that is another guy, I don't endorse his solution, but he does a good job to present the reason why e-voting is intrinsically bad as a concept, regardless of the implementation)

Mon, 15/09/2008 - 04:30 — tony

My Reasons for e-voting

I didn't have a reason from the politicians for it, as we didn't really pursue that line of conversation. However, I can give you the reasons that I personally would want to highlight.

  • It's cheaper - accomplishing the same thing with fewer tax dollars is always a plus in most people's minds.
  • It's more efficient - yes, you can get results faster, but also with fewer volunteers, less physical space, etc.
  • It's more accessible - once you have an electronic system, you can add on things like text-to-speech and speech-to-text for people who can't hold a pen, instantly variable font sizes for the vision impaired, hook into systems to allow for voting from home over the internet (with proper security and identity verifications systems, obviously) which is good both for the busy and the physically homebound, or any number of other things we haven't thought of yet.
  • It's more flexible - hand-counting ballots works reasonably well for a FPTP system, but is quite awful for more advanced, more fair systems involving any sort of IRV or PR voting, as almost all developed, democratic nations are now using. Using an electronic system makes it far easier to adapt to these different sorts of systems with relatively simple programming changes, making it more efficient for places that already use them and making it easier for the few remaining FPTP states to transition.