woman in white shirt showing frustration
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Back on 20 July, I made a submission to the Isle of Man’s electoral commission. This substantially re-stated the comprehensive article I wrote a couple of years ago on ways to improve the Isle of Man election system. This included – again – drawing attention to the frankly unprofessional conduct of most election candidates, as demonstrated by 64 out of 65 candidates failing to publicly disclose donations prior to the election. That’s shameful behaviour from every other candidate in the nation, and it was both surprising and underwhelming that not a single candidate followed my lead in transparency.

In addition to reiterating the many good points I made a couple of years ago, I also added a new section on the fundamental insecurity of online voting. I did not expect to be proven right so quickly, with a cyber-attack on UK’s electoral registers revealed on 8 August 2023.

I sent the following to the electoral commission back on 20 July:

Online voting is insecure and not technically possibly with current technology

People who have experience working with online computer security, such as myself, are almost united in their view that online voting is not technically possible. This is because of the security risks that exist, and the inability to create a secure audit trail that preserves the sanctity of anonymous ballots.

This is documented very clearly and accessibly in this letter regarding a proposal to introduce online voting in another island jurisdiction: https://verifiedvoting.org/verified-voting-puerto-rico-veto-letter-p-s-1314/

I endorse that letter and encourage you to address the issues that it raises.

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Source: https://xkcd.com/2030/

Michael Josem is a long-term consumer advocate, most prominently as a global leader in combating fraud in the online gambling industry. He was in part the inspiration for the 20th Century Fox Movie, Runner Runner, starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake.

Josem has over a decade of experience as a senior business leader working across various high-tech and online industries, and takes action to build a better community. His primary volunteer roles include service for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and Graih, the homelessness charity.