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

[Dr J Pelan]

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, 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).

I will skip over making comments of the present UK government other than
to say that they would not have introduced such a scheme unless they
though they would benefit from it.

People seem to have forgotten why we use polling stations. They are not
just a convenient central location to collect votes. A polling station
offers a place where one can vote secretly without fear of threat or
intimidation - there's a reason the police are there - there are checks
against personation and protection against vote selling. By mandating
postal voting, they threw most of the safeguards away.

> but right now I don't believe that maximising voter turnout is a good
> enough reason to give away the right to secrecy.

I agree entirely and object to any modification to the ballot process on
the basis of improving turnout. Just to clarify - this is distinct from
changing the form of the electoral system from FPTP to STV, for example,
or improving access to the disabled.

The nature of marking or counting ballots is irrelevant. Turnout improves
when people are engaged in the political process and where they feel they
can make a difference.

> 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.

That's fine as long as there is protection against feedback effects where
exit polls from the earlier days could influence voting patterns or
turnout on the latter ones. I would imagine that most people would opt to
vote as late as possible but I would be worried that the incumbent
government could play about with the election scheduling and timed release
of information mid-election to further their own ends. There is virtually
no scope for this when an election takes place on a single day.

--
John P.