Dear Australian Electoral Commission,

I request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 that you provide the following documentation regarding the "EasyCount Senate (ECS)" software ("the software"):

- Manual and automated software testing procedures for verifying that the software is operating correctly, including manual test procedures, unit tests, integration tests, functional tests, end-to-end tests, table-driven tests, smoke tests, fuzz tests, installation and compatibility tests, regression tests, acceptance tests, performance tests and benchmarks, security tests, usability tests, network and connectivity tests, and concurrency tests;
- Data sets used in the software testing procedures listed above, including real or simulated sets of votes, and real or simulated preference distributions;
- Installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting instructions, including the specifications of computer hardware, network configuration, operating system and runtime environment configuration required for the testing procedures, and,
- User manuals, guides, usage instructions, and parameter specifications for use of the software.

The documents listed above are substantially different in nature to documents that are the subject of other published FOI applications currently known to me. I am not affiliated with any other FOI applicant. This request is substantially different for the following reasons. First and foremost, this is not a request for the EasyCount Senate software itself. I am certain that the above-listed documentation regarding testing procedures cannot possibly be a "trade secret," even those components expressed in the form of source code, as adequate testing procedures should not reveal or rely upon details of the methods by which the software's results are determined---the testing procedures, when used, would at most establish a lower bound on the trustworthiness of the software. Furthermore, automated test procedures in the form of source code (such as unit tests) are, conventionally, logically separated from the software that is the subject of the testing procedures. Therefore the above-listed documents can be provided easily, electronically, separately from and without risk of revealing any "trade secret", and with minimal diversion of resources.

This request should not be considered "joined" to other pending applications, for the above reasons. I also request that access fees and charges for this request be waived as a matter of public interest. There is clear and increasing public interest in the EasyCount Senate software as evidenced by attention in the media. Release of the documents will promote public trust in the AEC's systems.

Yours faithfully,

Josh Deprez

Dear Mr Jones,

I am writing to enquire about the status of FOI Request No. LS5101 (your reference), as the letter dated 21 July 2014 from Mr Pirani indicated that a decision should have been expected by 18 August 2014.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Kind regards,

Dr Josh Deprez

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 'Testing, installation, and verification procedures and data for EasyCount Senate software'.

It is disappointing that there appears to have been no decision made on this FOI Request (your reference LS5101). The request was submitted on 17 July 2014 and acknowledged in the letter dated 21 July 2014 from Mr Pirani. The acknowledgement indicated that a decision should have been expected by 18 August 2014, yet as of 15 September 2014 no word of a decision has been received.

A full history of the FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/t...

Yours faithfully,

Dr Josh Deprez