No legal basis for voting machines in Germany?
According to
press
coverage, in todays parliament elections (Bundestagswahl) some 5% of German
voters will be forced to cast their vote on electronic voting machines.
However, those voting machines have no paper audit trail, and in fact seem to
have no audit trail at all. The ministry of interior does not want to disclose
the certification procedures or certification reports of those machines, allegedly to accommodate the trade secrets of the vendors.
Since when has a trade secret (if there is any involved, I doubt it) become
more important than the citizens' right to a transparent election process?
After a quick read through the respective laws such as the Election Verification Act
(Wahlprüfungsgesetz) and the Federal
Election Act (Bundeswahlordnung), there is not a single mention of any kind
of electronic voting machines. To the opposite, they go into every tiny detail
of how the ballots have to be formatted, what color of paper they are printed
on, etc.
Apparently there is already at least one person who wants to challenge the
election results in those counties where electronic voting machines are used.
I'm more than motivated to join such action and/or start an initiative for
transparency of electronic voting. Stay tuned.
My first Bollywood party in Berlin
The frequent reader of this blog will have noticed that I love Indian
Bollywood cinema (and of course the corresponding music).
Unfortunately there are very little Bollywood movies in the cinemas in Germany,
and other Bollywood events are almost as rare. However, Club Deewane now organizes more or less frequent parties in Berlin.
Due to my frequent travel, yesterday was the first time I was around when the
event took place. It was quite an experience... I wouldn't have imagined that
such an event could actually draw some 200+ people. I'd say no more than 20%
of the guests did were of Indian origin/decent, the rest was the usual
multicultural "Berlin mixture".
Anyway, I had a great time, and was surprised how much of the music I actually
recognized ;)
