[clug] Open Data Democracy

[Andrew Donnellan]

On 28 Jun 2016 23:54, "Michael James" <michael at james.st> wrote:
>
> >> Does the Australian Electoral Commission publish
> >> the raw votes data for each electorate?
> >>
> >> ie: This preference pattern scored this many votes.
> >>
> >> So other implementations of the counting algorithm can be run against
it?
> >
> > See "First Preferences and Quota" for ATL, "State Below the Line
> > Preferences" for BTL. Takes a bit of work to make sense of the BTL
> > files (you need to cross reference it with Candidate IDs etc etc)
> > but I think it's doable.
> >
http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/SenateDownloadsMenu-17496-csv.htm
>
> Hmmmm, not what I was looking for.
>
> I seem to remember we were rebuffed
>  when we asked to see the source of the AEC counting algorithm.
>
> When we vote, scrutineers representing the candidates can watch the
process.
> Then scrutineers can watch the ballot boxes being opened and inspect
votes.
> The votes are entered into computers, scrutineers can watch that this is
done correctly.
> Then we run a closed source black box algorithm and declare the winner!
>
> Hooray for transparency. Please, tell me I’m wrong?
>
> So, if we can’t have open source democracy, can we have open data?
>
> The AEC publish a file with the raw vote tallies, this preference pattern
scored this many votes.
> This file must have enough data to actually run the counting algorithm.
> Just first preferences (while very useful for regional analyses) is not
enough.

The BTL files *should* allow you to construct all the preferences (I
haven't sat down and tried so I might be wrong). For ATL, at the last
election you wouldn't have anything beyond first preferences - you would
use the Group Voting Tickets to reconstruct the full preference sequences.

Andrew

>
> Then anyone with some scripting ability can run their implementation
>  of the statute defined counting algorithm against the AEC one.
>
> Comments anyone?
>
>
> PS:     I’m particularly interested in the more complex senate count.
>         Last election, they bundled above the line votes and counted them,
>          they entered below the line votes literally.
>         So I’m still trusting computers to safely store and tally the
votes.
>         It’s a break in the chain of evidence, but less complex than the
tally algorithm.
>
> —
> Michael James                   clug3 at james.st
>
> Well theme my emoticons disgusted,
>         what has Linux come to?
>
>
>
>
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