e-elections
On 4 June polling stations open so we can elect councillors for Hampshire County Council and also our representatives at the European Parliament. I’d like to think that you will all find time to exercise your democratic right and participate in this important process.
On the day you can head off to your polling station in a local school or community centre, line up in front of the electoral officers to get your ballot paper and then into the privacy of the booth to vote.
Using a stubby pencil tied by a length of string to the wall of the booth, you will then draw a large cross next to the names of your chosen candidates. Fold the ballot paper and slip it through the slot into the ballot box. At the close of polling the boxes are taken away for the votes to be counted.
There have been pilot projects in many countries to set up electronic systems that to allow voting via the Internet, by mobile phone, digital TV or at a touch-screen kiosk. Critics of electronic voting claim that it is inherently flawed and susceptible to fraud, however it can’t beyond the wit of systems developers to create a secure electronic voting process. India has used electronic voting on a large scale in 2009 when more than 400 million voters used electronic voting machines. Tallying such a large number of votes took just a few hours.
So why do we still prefer the paper and pencil method and manually counting millions of bits of paper?
Think of the Eurovision Song Contest… several hours of bad songs followed by an interminable period of voting which builds the tension up as votes are gradually added until the final result is clear. I’m not sure, but I guess they were using electronic systems, so they could have had all votes in at exactly the same time… in which case the final song is over… and immediately the winner can be announced… a bit of an anti-climax.
The same principle applies to our elections for both local and central government. If we could all vote electronically, the polling stations would close, electoral computers would feed their polling data into a central server and within minutes we’d know all the results…
Now imagine you’re a TV politics producer… like Eurovision the political pundits have been used to building up the tension as individual results emerge, discussing swings this way and that way, and over many hours throughout the night, incrementally leading up to the final results. Which system would you prefer if you were making TV programmes?
I, somehow, think we’ll be exercising our franchise in the traditional way for some time to come.
Be prepared for a surprise when you turn up at your local Polling Station next Thursday. As a postal voter I received my two ballot papers earlier this week – the green paper for HCC has three names for our area but the EU paper has 15 and must be all of 60 cm in length. It is pinned to our notice board at home and the children think it must be some kind of joke.
As a long-time Presiding Officer at elections I forsee a few problems with voters on the day!
Having been to the polling station last Thursday have to say it was quite amusing watching people wrestle with the sheet of wallpaper that was the the EU ballot paper – until it came to my turn to do the same! Scrolling through the paper on screen might have been easier, but you can’t replace the sense of occasion and fulfilled civic duty that going to the polling station brings. By the way, was severely tempted to vote for TheRomanParty.ave, but a stern inner voice stopped me.
Given the size of the ballot paper, could the Roman Party be accused of ave-ing it large?