[E-voting] Minimum requirement to juge voting "technology"

[Michael McMahon]

Fergal Daly wrote:

>On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 01:51:44PM +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>  
>
[snip]

>>Also, the major motivation should be to maximise 
>>the number of people who vote.
>>Personally, I don't think the secrecy of the vote
>>is as important as people on this list seem to think.
>>I don't mind telling anyone who wants to know how I voted,
>>and I think that is how the vast majority of people think.
>>    
>>
>
>Currently it's quite unimportant but how would you feel if you were voting
>in Venezuela? Or some other country with a history of oppression. We are
>among the first generations in history to have the luxury of saying "I don't
>mind telling anyone how I voted". This could be a historical anomaly.
>
>  
>
.. or the UK? There were reports of intimidation/coercion among some 
Asian families
at the last election, which was the first to use postal-voting as the 
only option in many
areas. It was interesting in that it seems to have been unexpected (by 
central govt. at least).

It's worth debating, but right now I don't believe that  maximising 
voter turnout is a good
enough reason to give away the right to secrecy. Even in this country 
I've heard anecdotes
of families where individuals say they're going to vote one way (to 
avoid trouble at home)
but actually vote another way because it's done in secret.

There are much simpler ways to improve turnout. I missed the local 
elections this
year because I was on holiday. Simply allowing people to vote on a 
couple of different
days would help. And it might even be easier to do this with electronic 
voting than
with the old system (though it might require a constitutional amdmt)

Michael