[ga] Open source polling solution

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

I posted this to the IDNO list earlier, but thought it would be of
interest here as well.

Thanks to an IDNO list member who requests his name not be mentioned
(not wanting to be painted as a "traitor" supporter by Joop, and to
have his "dedication to individual representation inside ICANN" called
to question for his support of my position) for the heads up about
this excellent effort.

http://www.thecouch.org/free/

FREE (Free Referenda & Elections Electronically) is "the first open
source system for conducting electronic votes."

"We're now jumping from mere electronic tallying of votes in polling
places to actual internet voting, so please keep your hands inside the
browser at all times."

FREE is open source licensed, under the GPL, is written in Java (a
cross platform environment) and its background and design is available
in whitepapers at http://www.j-dom.demon.co.uk/project/download.html

From their Project Aims summary:
+++++++++++++++
FREE is an free software project creating Java electronic voting
software released under the General Public License (GPL). With this
software we aim to:-

-Provide a secure and private system
-Create scalable and reliable software
-Offer a non-commercial, non-partisan voting alternative
-Use the GPL to create an open system that Internet users will trust
-Release a system that can be used to support the growth of effective
democracy anywhere in the world

Additionally, in support of our wider development community, the
project aims to:-
-Advocate the free software paradigm
-Evangelise the use of technology to strengthen democracy within a
holistic understanding of the current malaise i.e. Internet voting
alone isn't going to solve turnout problems
+++++++++++++++

Also interesting reading is their paper
http://www.thecouch.org/free/docs/wfs.html
entitled "Why electronic voting software should be Free Software"

-- 
Best regards,
 William                          mailto:william@userfriendly.com


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