Public scrutiny of software used in NZ elections

by Kris Price on 17 October 2011

Last year I was browsing the STV website. The website mentions a piece of software written by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) called the “STV calculator” that is used to count the votes in our STV elections. Being a nerd I naturally thought I’d like to get my hands on the source code and have a look. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with it, just because that’s what curious people do. I also wanted to test whether New Zealand was making its election software open for scrutiny by the public, a basic principal that shouldn’t need explaining. Unfortunately this hasn’t gone so well.

My first step was to try contacting the email address that is prominently displayed in large font on every page of the STV website (stv@dia.govt.nz). I did this twice in October last year but received no replies. Disturbed that this email address wasn’t being monitored I then tried contacting the DIA directly. They run the website and developed the STV calculator so surely they can help. I explained that I’d been to their STV website, emailed their STV email, and got no reply, requested they have someone check the website and remove the email address it if it’s no longer monitored, and provide the source code for the STV calculator. This wasn’t very fruitful either, they couldn’t help me, and they tell me they don’t even know what “STV” is. After much back and forth explaining they conclude by sending me back to their STV website.

Getting no luck with these avenues I took it to the Minister for Internal Affairs, Nathan Guy in March this year and asked him to treat it as an OIA request. Five days later my request was bounced to Rodney Hide, Minister for Local Government, and 13 days after that I was bounced back to the Department of Internal Affairs.

On the 29th of April the DIA notified me that they are extending the timeframe to reply to my OIA request by 10 days in accordance with Section 15A(1)(a) of the Act. The reason they give is that the source code is held by a third party and more time is needed to carry out consultation and make decisions about my request. The final decision came 21 days later on the 20th of May declining to release the source code under section 9(2)(ba)(ii) of the Act because the code is “subject to an obligation of confidence and release of the code would damage the public interest.”

What I find foul about this is that the DIA contracted an third party to develop software used in our elections, never made release of the source code a condition of that contract, and now I suspect the third party does not want to release it because they want to protect their IP. The public should have a right to review all source code and systems used in our elections.

I’ve since filed a complaint with the Ombudsman. But this is clearly a bad precedent; I would like to see some official policy or legislation around voting systems used in the country that ensures they are completely open to scrutiny by the public.

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No Love for SoCo

by Kris Price on 15 September 2011

Props to WCC for the draft Wellington 2040 framework. This is just a framework and there’s a lot of work ahead, but I’m excited by what that work will produce if carried out by a good team of architects, designers, and planners. Of course producing great masterplans for our precincts is one thing, but it will amount to nothing if the Council doesn’t make the right decisions to bring those plans to fruition. These will be long term decisions, the benefits of which often won’t be realised until after the councillors making the decision have moved on.

Anyway, oddly, on reading the framework I couldn’t help but notice that half of Te Aro is suspiciously missing. Here’s the Victoria Precinct getting some serious attention in the landscape section, note the creation and reinforcement of connections, and just all round busyness going on in this picture.

Here’s the other side of Taranaki St, aka SoCo…

Err, why no love? It’s not just in this section, it’s all throughout the framework. A lot of attention is given to what could become of the Victoria precinct, but little to no attention given to SoCo. Of course this is only a framework, and the SoCo area should end up being properly addressed in one of the precinct masterplans that are meant to follow this. But here’s a few things I hope to see come through to improve pedestrian connectivity in this area (there’s absolutely none at the moment through the southern super block).

  • Extend Ebor St to Taranaki St when the Capital City Motors site is redeveloped.
  • Extend Alpha St, Fifeshire Ave, and Barker St when redvelopments permit.
  • Protect pedestrian rights of way through the Methodist Church to Holland St, from Holland St north through the lane to Courtenay Plc, and through Moore Wilson’s.
  • Develop a chain of midblock pedestrian connections from Ebor St southwards to Jessie St, Vivian St, and Frederick St.
  • Provide a connection between Sages Ln to St Martin’s Sq.
  • Of course ultimately I’d like to see Abel Tasman St extended to Cambridge Tce too. But that’s probably a hard sell.

WTF is SoCo you say? It’s the area South of Courtenay, for lack of a better name this works for me. Credit to Tom Beard for the term.

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Rail through Devonport

10 September 2011

A repost on a proposal I made to Auckland’s Skyscrapercity forum on 21 August 2009. The proposal was that the railway for the North Shore should be routed via Devonport and the peninsula up to Takapuna, rather than the now default proposal for it to merge with the Northern Motorway around the area of Northcote [...]

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Never buying Toshiba again

6 September 2011

With all the hype about this or that battery exploding in recent years the last thing you want to see when working away with a laptop in your actual lap is smoke fuming out the back. Thankfully no explosion in this case, just a poor design leading to a frayed cable connecting the screen. Appears [...]

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Fair Play

5 May 2011

TelstraClear aren’t always right, but they — and all of the other small telco’s that have been objecting lately — are right about this one. The Government’s plan to give the LFCs a 10 year regulatory holiday is a Bad Idea.

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Why does NZ have second level domains?

18 April 2011

As of February 2011 there are 372,062 domains in .co.nz, the next closest is 24,373 in .org.nz, and following that 23,935 in .net.nz. So, what meaningful purpose do these three second level domains (2LDs) serve? I argue that they serve no useful purpose. The original intent was for commercial domains to be registered under .co.nz, [...]

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Classes of service and neutrality on the UFB

26 March 2011

A couple of months ago (yes, I’m slow to post as always) I was made aware of a proposal that may mean the UFB networks favour certain types of applications and service providers over others, or favour legacy styles of service delivery such as walled gardens over the evolving trend towards over the top delivery. [...]

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Whangarei case study (part 2)

5 January 2011

I’ve been playing with PostGIS recently, so I thought I’d start part two with a quick map showing the dwelling density of each area unit from the 2006 Census and the roads from Whangarei District Council. The area units shown correspond reasonably closely to the deployment area indicated by the map in the Crown Fibre [...]

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Whangarei case study (part 1)

19 December 2010

Whangarei is the first town off the blocks in the ultra-fast broadband space race, with Crown Fibre selecting Northpower for negotiations back in September, then the ceremonious connection of a school a few days ago — a completely meaningless event as there is still no solid definition around the UFB that differentiates this from any [...]

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