Fw: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] IG Public policy issues - approx 7 days left to deadline.. [March 31/06]

[Ginger Paque]

Robert: any chance you can put this into acceptable format and include it? I know that there is not widespread interest in this issue, but that is what makes it particularly important to include it. 
Thanks, Ginger

Concise formulation
E-voting technologies must be examined to ensure that they do not threaten the right to vote.

Description
Electronic voting and identification systems may help more people exercise their right to vote. But the potential for manipulation and invasion are frightening.
All voting processes, manual or electronic, are subject to error, to omission, to physical and training problems. Electronic voting adds the issue of vulnerability to manipulation through software particularly if there is not a verifiable paper backup.

 

Computer hackers have every conceivable motivation, many times incomprehensible to most of us. But without a doubt, the stakes in an election are high enough that there most probably will be attempts to manipulate the results. There must be an international certification process for electronic voting machine and software manufacturers to oversee these processes and ensure that all possible efforts are made to avoid tampering.

 

The collection and use of voter information may seem to be a privacy issue, but it is also a right to vote issue. A voter who is not confident that their vote will be secret and is afraid of retribution related to their political stance may well be affected in their decision of whether to vote and how to vote. If voter ID information is collected in a serial manner parallel to the serial vote tabulation, it is conceivable that the individual vote could be deciphered and recorded. 

 

 If there is not voter confidence in the electoral process, there is no exercise of the right to vote.

 

Substance

Mandate

Main actors

Priority for treatment in the first annual meeting

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robert Guerra 
  To: Governance 
  Cc: plenary at wsis-cs.org 
  Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 12:53 PM
  Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] IG Public policy issues - approx 7 days left to deadline.. [March 31/06]


  [Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire list. Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for specific people]

  Click http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/ to access automatic translation of this message!
  _______________________________________

  Following-up on my earlier email, I have gone through the messages
  posted on the Governance list for the last 2 months (Feb & March) to
  identify which themes (if any) have been developed for the upcoming
  deadline.

  There seem to be 6 proposals developed so far. They are below and at the
  following URL:

  <http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=bbfcskzpsx44x>

  Regards

  Robert

  --

  Proposed Themes:

  * User centric digital identity   (Garth Graham, March 10 & 21, 06)
  * Right to development (Parminder, March 7,06)
  * Enhanced Cooperation  (Milton Mueller, March  16, 06)
  * Asserting the public-ness of the Internet as a guiding principle for
  IG  (Parminder, March  18, 06)
  * Internet content filtering and free expression   (Milton Mueller &
  RSF, March 21, 06)
  * Affordable Internet access  (Mawaki Chango, March 21, 06)






  -- 
  Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
  Managing Director, Privaterra
  Tel +1 416 893 0377 Fax +1 416 893 0374


  _______________________________________________
  Plenary mailing list
  Plenary at wsis-cs.org
  http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20060324/1a8563c2/attachment.htm