Request for EasyCount Senate NATA Accreditation report
Dear Australian Electoral Commission,
Under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 i request the following documents:
EasyCount Senate NATA Accreditation Report
Yours faithfully,
Morgan Bennett
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Dear Mr Bennett
I refer to your request dated 15 April 2022 7:05 PM for access to
documents (your ‘FOI Request’) relating to EasyCount Senate NATA
Accreditation under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
Apology
At the outset, I wish to apologise for the delay in processing your FOI
Request. Your FOI Request was overlooked in the rush of work undertaken by
the AEC following the issue on 11 April 2022 of writs for the 2022 Federal
Election.
Your FOI Request is now deemed to have been refused on 15 May 2022 as a
consequence of the operation of section 15AC of the FOI Request.
Scope of your FOI Request
I have taken your request to be for:
EasyCount Senate NATA Accreditation Report.
My understanding is that you seek only the final report and that you seek
it for latest time that the EasyCount Senate software was accredited.
Please note that the AEC accredits the EasyCount Senate Software each time
it issues a new version of the Software.
How your FOI Request will be processed.
Having regard to the guidance at paragraph 3.161 of the guidelines issued
by the Australian Information Commissioner under section 93A of the FOI
Act, the AEC will process your FOI Request and provide you with a
statement of reasons for the decision that it makes about the request.
We received your request on 15 April 2022 and the 30 day statutory period
for processing your request commenced from the day after that date. You
should therefore have had a decision from us by 15 May 2022. We will now
expedite the processing of your FOI Request.
Given that your FOI Request is deemed to have been refused, no processing
charge will apply.
AEC FOI Disclosure Log
Please note that information released under the FOI Act may later be
published online on our disclosure log
[1]https://www.aec.gov.au/information-acces..., subject to certain
exceptions. (For example, personal information will not be published where
this would be unreasonable.)
Contact with you
We will contact you using the email address that you provided. Please
advise if you would prefer us to use an alternative means of contact. If
you have any questions, please contact me using my contact details below.
Yours sincerely
Owen
Owen
Freedom of Information Team
Australian Electoral Commission
T: 13 23 26
E: [2][AEC request email]
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________________________________________
From: Morgan Bennett [[FOI #8753 email]]
Sent: Friday, 15 April 2022 7:05 PM
To: INFO
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Request for EasyCount Senate
NATA Accreditation report
CAUTION:This email originated from outside of the Australian Federal
Government. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise
the sender and know the content is safe.
Dear Australian Electoral Commission,
Under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 i request the following
documents:
EasyCount Senate NATA Accreditation Report
Yours faithfully,
Morgan Bennett
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[5][FOI #8753 email]
Is [6][email address] the wrong address for Freedom of Information
requests to Australian Electoral Commission? If so, please contact us
using this form:
[7]https://www.righttoknow.org.au/change_re...
This request has been made by an individual using Right to Know. This
message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet.
More information on how Right to Know works can be found at:
[8]https://www.righttoknow.org.au/help/offi...
Please note that in some cases publication of requests and responses will
be delayed.
If you find this service useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web
manager to link to us from your organisation's FOI page.
Dear Morgan Bennett
Please refer to the attached documents regarding your FOI request.
Reference: LEX3110.
Kind regards
Mel
Legal Services Branch
Australian Electoral Commission
T: 13 23 26
Dear Australian Electoral Commission,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Australian Electoral Commission's handling of my FOI request 'Request for EasyCount Senate NATA Accreditation report'.
I do not believe the release of this document is contrary to the public interest. The grounds for part of this request being rejected is “Having the information … widely available, may result in people misunderstanding” [1], However it states under s 11B(4)(b) of the FOI Act that a factor that must not be taken into account “access to the document could result in any person misinterpreting or misunderstanding the document” [2]. For the reasons stated above, I believe this decision was made contrary to s 11A(4) of the FOI Act [3].
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/r...
Yours faithfully,
Morgan Bennett
[1] Attachment A.
[2] Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) s 11B(4)(b).
[3] Ibid s 11A(4)
Dear Morgan Bennett
Please find attached correspondence in relation to your request for
internal review. This correspondence includes:
o A new decision notification.
o Revised reasons.
As outlined in my covering correspondence (‘attached’) the reasons
provided refer to an irrelevant consideration – the potential for the
document (and/or the exempt sections) to be misunderstood.
Simply put, I misspoke. The word ‘misunderstanding’ should not have been
used in the reasons.
Next Steps and request
The FOI Act does not explicitly provide for a decision to be remade nor
does it explicitly forbid this. I believe that it is appropriate to do so
in the circumstances.
To assist with the administrative process the accompanies this decision, I
request that you withdraw your section 55 internal review request by
return email.
This will not preclude you from making a further review request if you are
not satisfied with the reasons provided in Attachment B. Attachment C
explains those review rights.
Kind regards,
Will Mueller | Manager, Corporate and Information Law
Legal Services Branch
Australian Electoral Commission
T: 13 23 26
Hello,
I withdraw your section 55 internal review for this FOI Request LEX3110.
Regards,
Morgan
Justin Warren left an annotation ()
I'd still challenge the s 47E exemption because the reasons given still amount to "we think people would misunderstand" with a side-helping of "we so lack confidence in our processes that seeing this old document would mean people could rig future elections".
Transparency of "the processes by which the efficacy of changes made to the algorithm for the ECS and miscellaneous defect fixes to ECS was tested to give the AEC assurance over the integration of ECS with the Ballot Paper Reconciliation System BPRS" would *enhance* public understanding and trust in our electoral systems.
If that trust is warranted.
If it *isn't* then it's even more important that we know so that we can fix it. Our electoral systems are vital parts of our democracy so we *must* be assured that any problems were and will be noticed and fixed. That is of paramount public interest. "Only foreign spies know how to rig our elections" isn't the security-by-obscurity we need.
And it's probably nonsense because the document is years old. One would hope that software as important as this gets checked against newly discovered vulnerabilities and advances in the state-of-the-art slightly more frequently. Learning about old vulnerabilities long-since fixed doesn't undermine trust, it enhances it.
This is the whole reason we have scrutineers watching every part of the electoral process. We need scrutineers for the software bits as well.
Justin Warren left an annotation ()
Ask for internal review and get them to try again at getting this right.
s 47E is a conditional exemption. By invoking it the AEC must then perform a public interest balancing exercise to balance the pro-disclosure default of the FOI Act's objects against factors that would make disclosure contrary to the public interest.
s 11B of the FOI Act lists factors to be taken into account (s 11B(3)) and those that are irrelevant (s 11B(4)).
https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/view...
s 11B(4)(d) states that "access to the document could result in confusion or unnecessary debate." must not be taken into account as a factor.