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

[Timothy Murphy]

On Friday 10 September 2004 16:20, Michael McMahon wrote:

> .. 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).

By "last election" do you mean "last general election"?
Were there constituencies where postal voting was the only option?

> 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. 

I din't suggest the "right to secrecy" should be "given away".

Someone argued that clever people might work out in some way
how people had voted, and that this would be a disaster.
I don't think anyone would risk several years in prison
to get information of little or no practical value;
so I don't think it is worth going to great lengths to prevent it.
But it wouldn't be the end of the world if somebody did do this.
There have been democratic systems where people voted openly,
and which seemed to work as well as the present system.
If secrecy is such a vital matter, why don't you press
for secret votes in the Dail?


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland