veri.vote featured in The Australian – Federal election 2016: accurate, instant result is no dream

Company Name: Mithrl

Announcement Date: 06/07/2016
Announcement Category: Other
Announcement Content:

6 July, 2016, Pg 4, The Australian, by Victoria Laurie

Imagine a federal election where the results are known at 6.01pm on Saturday night, the victor makes a speech at 6.30pm and the new ­government gets to work on ­Monday morning.

That’s the dream of veri.vote, a team of young Perth entrepreneurs who claim they can deliver the world’s first secure, fast and anonymous electronic voting ­system.

People could vote online at home, or go to electronic polling booths, says spokesman Rick Newnham, who is a former Young Western Australian of the Year.

“All those votes would be stored instantaneously and anonymously and any individual could go back later and scrutinise the result.” The team say their use of ‘blockchain’ technology is the key to security, creating an unchangeable record that differs from other electronic polling ­models.

“Our system is like a big public bulletin board which can be added to but nobody can change or take information off,” says veri.vote CEO Adrian Petersen.

“And you wouldn’t end up submitting an invalid vote.”

“There have been problems with online voting because the traditional way has been to pool electronic data and build a big wall around it,” he says.

“If someone can get into the system, they can change one or all of the votes.”

Distrust of full electronic voting has seen the nation persist with pencil-and-paper methods primary schools and community halls, though the issue has been considered after every federal election since 2001. In the 2000 US presidential election, punched card machines failed spectacularly after 170,000 votes were rejected as unreadable in parts of Florida. The voting debacle in that state was considered pivotal to the ­victory of George Bush over Democrat candidate Al Gore.

The veri.vote team say electoral commissions around Australia might now look more favourably on their technology, given the ­agonising delay of several days — or weeks in the case of the Senate — before winners are known.

Rumours are also emerging the Australian Electoral Commission faces irregularities on top of counting a remaining 3 million votes, including 1.5 million postal votes.

Veri.vote co-founder Cam ­Sinclair says such problems raise memories of the catastrophic WA Senate election, which was re-run in 2014 after 1370 ballot papers went missing.

He says he was a scrutineer watching as 200 volunteers spent three weeks counting a second round of votes, in an antiquated system dating to the late 1800s.

“It’s such a cumbersome process of manual counting and handling large bits of paper,” he says. “That experience solidified my belief that there’s a better way.”

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters held 20 hearings and reviewed more than 200 submissions before deciding ­Australia should stick to its largely paper-based system.

“Millions of Australians are now holding their breath to hear their nation’s fate, but the results literally move at the speed of paper,” says Mr Newnham.

“With our system, you could get a result and a sausage sizzle on the same day.”

Announcement URL: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-accurate-instant-result-is-no-dream/news-story/3248fa9ee9e3e3fade35281288a65a10
About Mithrl:

Trusted, efficient democracy.
Veri.vote is revolutionising the electoral system with a secure e-voting using blockchain (bitcoin) technology.

Go to Company Profile for: Mithrl

Announcement Contact: [email protected]