Constitutional Court stopped the use of election computers.

U.S. voters are to be reconciled with paper and pen voting: The Constitutional Court has in the last Bundestag election, set the computer to be inadmissible. The previous technique had shortcomings, was too difficult to control.

 

AP
Wahlcomputer (in September 1998 in Cologne for test run): Election 2005, valid

Karlsruhe - The equipment around 1800, where the Bundestag in 2005 about two million people have cast their votes, oppose the principle of public choice, it says in a ruling on Tuesday.

Because, however, no evidence of error are satisfied, the election remains valid, the Karlsruhe court ruled. In the elections in the current year it is likely to be again with pen and paper chosen.

With the decision of Tuesday there were two complaints in the Verification essentially successful. The complaints were numerous defects in the machines have been criticized, in the opinion of the plaintiff the secret voting and democratic control of the counting hurt.

The Vice-President of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, Andreas Voßkuhle, stressed that no final election computers were banned. But the existing devices have shortcomings. "The tenor of the decision might be tempted to think the court was technikfeindlich and ignored the challenges and opportunities of the digital age," said Vosskuhle. That is not correct. The use of voting machines was possible. "Even Internet-election, the court rather than a definitive end to."

Around two million voters had in 2005 no Bundestagswahl with pencil and ballot paper, but their vote by voting machines delivered.

The electronic voting machines were provided by 39 of the 299 constituencies established, and in the federal states of Brandenburg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.

The usual computer in Germany, the Dutch company Nedap was the first time in the European elections in 1999 and most recently in September 2008 when the local election in Brandenburg used. The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court was on Tuesday in Karlsruhe, however, by choice of designs computer Nedap ESD1 and ESD2.

Had sued the physicist Ulrich Wiesner and his father Joachim Wiesner, an emeritus political scientist. On behalf of the plaintiffs criticized the Bonn Professor Wolfgang Löwer at the hearing last October that the voters on "blind trust" to the electronic ballot box were instructed. "We are dealing with a control vacuum after the voting to be done." This is the principle of public choice at risk. During the election polls, citizens can count on during the polling station to attend. Rudolf Richter Mellinghoff Constitution, as rapporteur, responsible in the process, even then inquired after the possibility of the election by a computer printed ballot papers to make comprehensible.

From the perspective of experts may be tampering with the software usually subsequently discovered. Changes in the hardware - that is, on the device itself - are only difficult to detect, said Jörn Müller-Quade by the European Institute for System Security. Such manipulations demonstrated the Chaos Computer Club (see photo gallery and video below).

Election computers are in different countries around the world have for years used. Especially in the U.S., despite known margins for the vote counting process and practice. In particular, the voting on punch card is then widely distributed and played in the problems of income recognition on the presidential election in 2000 in Florida, a crucial role.