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

[Michael McMahon]

Dr J Pelan wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Michael McMahon wrote:

[...]

>>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.

Right, and actually what I was thinking of, is not so different
from what we currently allow. Basically, if when the election is called
you know you're not going to be present, you should be able to register
for voting on an alternate date. You would then be obliged to vote on that date
(say at the county-council offices, but not by postal vote).
The point is that everyone has to decide in advance which day they're going to vote.
Also, you could put a limit such that no more than 10% of the electorate in any constituency
could register to vote on the other day. (It's pretty unlikely that that amount would
want to anyway). I don't think that would be stretching the constitutional
restriction too far. Obviously there are practical issues, like how to keep ballot papers secure,
which is why I said some kinds of e-voting might be beneficial here. Secure e-voting
systems which don't keep paper copies of the ballots would have a slight advantage
when it comes to organising this kind of thing.

Actually, I don't see the big deal with feedback effects in our system
(as opposed to the UK and US systems). Exit polls might get a good picture
of initial first preference votes, but STV does a pretty good job of reflecting
how people really want to vote. Is any advantage gained from tactical voting in STV?
I don't really see the problem with relaxing the restrictions above
and allowing people to vote on either day, at their choice.

Michael.