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1title: Election-appeals and by-elections expected in Hesse state elections due to severe problems with voting computers
2date: 2008-01-27 00:00:00
3updated: 2009-04-18 19:12:41
4author: presse
5tags: update, pressemitteilung
6
7Severe problems and irregularities occurred during Sunday's election for the state government in the German state of Hesse, where NEDAP voting computers were operated.
8
9<!-- TEASER_END -->
10
11In addition to massive obstructions of the election observers in several
12communities, a number of incidents have clearly disproved the claims of
13Hesse's ministry of the interior about the security and reliability of
14the voting computers.
15
16In at least one community the voting computers were stored in the
17private homes of political party members over night. This is an
18“established practice”, members of the regulating authority confirmed
19towards the election observers. All nine voting computers had been
20stored privately in this community.
21
22“The storing of voting computers over night at the homes of local
23politicians is the nightmare scenario for insider manipulation, even
24according to the logic of the Hesse ministry of the interior. This is
25something even we couldn't have imagined”, said Dirk Engling speaking
26for Chaos Computer Club (CCC).
27
28Election observers of the CCC were left alone for a long time in two
29polling stations, before the voting executive arrived. Manipulation of
30the election could have been easily accomplished by anyone left alone
31with the voting computers.
32
33In at least one polling station the NEDAP technology failed; a voting
34computer in Viernheim showed an error message shortly after the startup
35a few minutes before 8 o'clock. A normal vote was therefore impossible.
36It took over an hour until a replacement computer arrived at the polling
37station. During this time many voters were not able to vote and
38effectively disenfranchised.
39
40In Obertshausen interested citizens were refused admittance to the
41polling station by an employee of the regulating authority and election
42observers were even threatened with arrest.
43
44“The election supervisor in Obertshausen obviously hasn't heard anything
45of things such as openness and the legally warranted publicity of an
46election”, CCC speaker Dirk Engling commented. Some election supervisors
47actively tried to prevent an observation of the election in its
48operation.
49
50Observations from over 50 interested citizens showed that a large number
51of older voters had problems casting their ballot on the computers,
52contrary to the claims in the run-up to the election. Many were so
53overwhelmed, that election helpers had to assist them with the casting
54of their ballot.
55
56The CCC also visited the people in charge of voting in the hessian
57communities which had decided against using voting computers after a
58testing phase. CCC activists brought biscuits to the election volunteers
59in the polling stations during the counting. In the process they got
60interesting insights into the reasons for the rejection of the NEDAP
61voting computers.
62
63In previous elections, the town of Weiterstadt has used voting
64computers. “We were among the first who introduced voting computers. But
65after the first election we experienced that the effort in preparing the
66election was too large”, Mr. Gerald Eberlein, voting supervisor of
67Weiterstadt, said. “I just had the feeling it was insecure”, he said
68justifying the move away from the disputed computers.
69
70In Erzhausen the ballots were also casted on paper in the traditional
71manner. “We had rented the computers due to the counting and
72vote-splitting during our local elections, but the promised saving of
73time didn't happen, it just got more expensive. That's why we changed
74back to paper”, Dieter Karl, Mayor of Erzhausen, told the CCC. The
75advantages promised by the commercial supplier of NEDAP voting computers
76simply did not materialise.
77
78The discussion about the practical issues around voting computers shows
79that they not save labor, but also mean more costs and time for the
80communities, allow unnoticed manipulation of the result and cause major
81problems for senior citizens potentially disenfranchising a segment of
82the population.
83
84Many violations of procedures were noticed by the election observers,
85and the reliability problems of the NEDAP systems make it clear once
86more, that the basic problems of voting computers: the inability to
87verify the correct operation and transparency of the election. Neither
88voters nor election helpers were able to validate the correctness of the
89ballot-casting and counting. A subsequent recounting is therefore simply
90not possible.
91
92“The observation of the election in Hesse shows that the time has
93definitely come to withdraw the voting computers also in Germany”, said
94Dirk Engling. “Especially in the light of the tight outcome of the
95election in Hesse the unacceptable risks of computer mediated voting
96become very clear.”
97
98The CCC would like to thank all election observers for their commitment
99to upholding the democratic process!