All voting in elections still have to manually counted – NU.nl

All votes for the upcoming general election will be as a precaution, hand-counted. The system by which the votes were counted, is no longer used due to safety issues that could cause the results of being hacked can be.

That confirmed the ministry of the Interior Wednesday night, following news of RTL News.

The software that the polling stations used at the election by sending, is obsolete and can be manipulated. That turned out Monday from research by a security expert in command of the station.

As the polling stations the system would run on an old computer that is connected to the internet, then the system open to malicious software that the results can be changed.

See also: Software for forwarding election results is vulnerable’

Balls

Minister Ronald Plasterk of the Interior late Wednesday in a letter to parliament knowing that he is the system, therefore, as a precaution do not want to use in the general election in march.

The use of the software throws according to the minister the question whether, in the forthcoming election, the outcome is manipulated. “I am of the opinion, and that is the electoral council agree with me, that there is no single shadow of doubt could be allowed to hang.”

“wait Longer with this decision would in my opinion only lead to the publications about the reliability of the software to continue with the risk that confidence in the reliability of the result of the election is eroding.”

See also: electoral council already knew in 2011 of vulnerable verkiezingssoftware

Methods

All municipalities in the Netherlands, Wednesday evening informed about the decision of the minister. Later this month across the country organised meetings for municipalities to discuss how there are now being worked.

After the elections evaluates Plasterk the state of affairs with the municipalities and the electoral council, and he wants to find out how the count of votes in the future must be furnished.

Plasterk stresses that the government has previously said that other countries can benefit from the influence of politics and public opinion in the Netherlands, and also that they have the resources to try this. Plasterk called it Russia in particular.

The minister wants the elections that people in the Netherlands all know that the outcome is really the result. “Then I do not want to dwell get caught up in all sorts of discussions about one or another perhaps exotic scenario by which someone could hack into,” says Plasterk.

By: NU.nl