As countries around the world modernize their public elections process, the big problem with electronic voting machines is that the market is moving slow to provide equipment which fulfills all of the requirements for a fully democratic election. In many cases, printed proof of a citizen’s vote is still needed, in case the machine has buggy software or if there is suspicion of fraud. This problem, amongst others, are being floated around the voting machine industry. The Secretary of State from California, Debora Bowen, spoke at EmTech (Emerging Technologies Conference) and said that if the e-voting machines used free software, they would be easier to certify as trustable.

She explains that the county decision-makers who are responsible for choosing an e-voting solution for their political jurisdiction have a hard time with proprietary, closed voting machines because they can’t see the code to certify their reliability. It has being proved, that the most popular (and proprietary) electronic voting machines have security holes. And, with a bizarre twist added by intellectual property laws, not only the code but even the voting data submitted to the machine belongs to the e-voting machine company — and not the state or the people, a problem faced in Ohio when a government audit of Diebold voting machines was attempted. What’s worse, Diebold has a proven history of lying followed by cover-up attempts through censorship (in a case that involved the Community Colo in the SF Bay Area).

Bowen believes that if the code is not closed by copyright, the government can analyze the system and certify that it is secure enough to be used during a election.

Showing that in some was the United States needs to catch up to democratic innovations, Latin America has already chosen free software for their voting machines. In Brazil, the government migrated all of its e-voting machines to free software, after months of audits by different authorities and experts and, this year, state elections will use the free software system.

During Linuxworld 2008, a free software e-voting system was set up for a test run by the attendees. The solution was presented by the Open Voting Consortium, a group formed after the contentious presidential election of 2000. The solution is a normal PC using Ubunto OS and free software, set up with a flat computer screen and mouse, a paper receipt with the vote on it and a bar code that can be used for counting votes. So, the way it works is a voter goes to the machine, votes, confirms the vote, gets their receipt, and then scans in their vote with the receipt. This paper is then left at the voting space in case an audit is required.

For more information, see this article from Amanda McPherson from the Linux Foundation: Could Linux Change Democracy?. Also, see this interview with Aviel “Avi” Rubin, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an e-voting activist, who defends independent software and cryptography as part of a trustable solution.

The Brasília Protocol (now translated to English) started the process of implementation of the Open Document Format (ODF) within the Brazilian Government. The Protocol was signed during the opening of CONSEGI 2008 by Bank of Brazil, Serpro, Dataprev, Post Office and Telegraph State Company (ECT), INPE (Institute of Spacial Researches), INPI (Institute of Intellectual Property), Ministry of Exterior Relations and others. All the institutions who signed the protocol are assuming the commitment to use the ODF standard, make it available to society-at-large, exchange documents between themselves in this format and to share solutions in open format. The news is on ODF Alliance website.

As the General Director of ODF Alliance Chapter Brazil declared at the debate hosted at CONSEGI 2008: “the citizen must understand that when they open a government website and the file offered is in a format of a proprietary software, it presupposes that he/she is obligated to have the license of that software, what is unacceptable and out of the law.”

This quick action clearly shows how important the choice of ODF format is by the government. It it is a show of respect to the country’s citizens, since the government won’t force them to buy a license in order to view information which is their right to have access to. The implementation process in Brazil will be coordinated by Caixa Econômica Federal (Federal Bank). Clarice Copetti, the vice-president of Technology of Caixa, says: “The Brazilian Government is the biggest buyer of IT. With this decision, the entities who signed the protocol will redirect their investiments to train their teams and to develop new solutions for this format”.

São Paulo, 23 de setembro de 2008

A Comissão Eleitoral da Associação dos Geógrafos Brasileiros – Seção Local São Paulo, no uso de suas atribuições estatutárias, convoca os associados em dia com suas responsabilidades junto à AGB-SP para participarem da eleição que definirá a Diretoria no Biênio de setembro de 2008 até setembro de 2010. O processo eleitoral ocorrerá nos dias 25 e 26 de setembro, na sede da AGB-São Paulo, em São Paulo, a partir das 18h do dia 25 de setembro, com fechamento da urna no dia 26, às 20 horas.

A Comissão Eleitoral que coordenará todas as etapas do pleito é composta pelos seguintes associados, os quais foram determinados pela Reunião Aberta de Diretoria realizada no dia 5 de setembro de 2008: Luís Fernando de Freitas Camargo, Maíra Bueno Pinheiro, Nídia Nacib Pontuschka e Paulo Miranda Favero.

Vator.tv is a social network for technology start-ups to connect with investors. They also host a newsroom which provides technology industry news & analysis. North by South was recently featured with this article: Developing your technology in Latin America: Near-shoring software engineering in Latin America is a side effect of progressive state policies. The article examines the near-shoring potential of Lain America as an unintentional consequence of the socially liberal initiatives that have been implemented in recent years.

In returning from CONSEGI 2008, North by South has been extremely busy keeping up with our schedules and lives here in San Francisco. But, tonight, we’ve taken the time to put together the attention due to CONSEGI here on our news site. CONSEGI 2008 was history being made — we spoke with people from the Latin American Free Software Foundation, public officials from Brazil to South Africa, free software activists struggling to convince their governments to adopt the path forged by Brazil and Venezuela. Seeing it all together, in one place, with people from over the Americas — it was dizzying.

We urge you to begin with our English-language translation of Rafael Bonifaz’s own heart-felt summary: The Free Software Brothers (or you can read it in Spanish: Los Hermanos del Software Libre).

We urge you to check out our other coverage of CONSEGI 2008 (more pictures to come soon, we promise):

• CONSEGI 2008 Report-Back and Summary
• Introductory Report-Back
• CONSEGI 2008 Day One (with photos)
• CONSEGI 2008 Day Two (with photos)
• North by South Heads to CONSEGI

Even if Slashdot and the North American free software world hasn’t yet caught on to the enormity of what’s happening in Latin America, it doesn’t matter. Because it’s huge, it’s happening and to be a part of what’s going on as a member of the community is an exciting honor and responsibility.

CONSEGI 2008 is over and North by South was honored and excited to have been a participant in this convergence of public free software initiatives from all over Latin America. We are providing here an English-language update of some of the highlights of what we saw and who we spoke with during CONSEGI.

Between all of the presentations and debates about free software usage and policies within government, one of the most important things that came out of this first annual CONSEGI meeting was the CONSEGI Declaration, signed on the conference’s last day by Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Cuba, Ecuador and Paraguay. This declaration is a letter of protest against the ISO/IEC’s rejection of the formal appeal from Venezuela, South Africa, Brazil and India of the ISO vote that approved Microsoft’s OOXML as an international standard.

North-by-South was happy to have the opportunity to sit and talk with Marcos Mazoni, head of the Technical Committee to Implement Free Software in Brazil, about the many issues involving free software in Latin America. He confirmed that CONSEGI will continue to happen next year and that plans are already underway for CONSEGI 2009. Talking about the topic of transparency in the government, which was expressed in many of the painels, Mr Mazoni explained that creation of IT policies in Brazil will include consideration of participatory democracy, enabling the average citizen to follow the governmental actions as they affect people’s lives by making these actions transparent to the public. You can read more about our discussion with Mr Mazoni on our CONSEGI 2008 Summary Page as well as issues such as licensing government-sponsored code and reports on free software initiatives in Argentina, South Africa, Ecuador and Venezuela.