Postal voting

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1562419]

I think that postal voting has real problems - as I've been discussing over here (worth reading the post that's attached to too, it's very interesting).

The basic problem boils down to this - if you're voting from home then there's nothing to stop someone bribing you to vote X, and then sitting behind you while you click the button/write on the form. Similarly, much more social pressure to conform can be exerted. Whereas, if you're voting in a booth then you can say "Yes, I voted X." when actually you voted "Y", no matter how much social pressure is exerted. See The Times article on that link for an example of that kind of pressure being exerted.

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> you can say "Yes, I voted X." when actually you voted "Y", no matter how much social pressure is exerted

Well not necessarily. Social pressure is rather powerful even at a distance. Though yes, it's much better than with postal voting and you can't ever eliminate that.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Most people aren't great liars, and social pressure is hard to shake off even if you're not directly influenced at any particular moment (witness all the people who vote for X because that's what their parents did, and their grandparents before them).

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

On top of that there's the unreliability of the postal service. And almost every election there's some story about 'helpful' candidates 'helping' people to fill the ballot in or offering to post it for the voter...

[andrewducker]

If you follow the link in the post you'll see an example of Labour supporters doing exactly that.

[lilysea.livejournal.com]

I chose

The ability to vote from your own home

because I was thinking of the difficulties in getting to a polling booth faced by people with mobility issues / people with small children / people caring for elderly parents.

I would rather that these people have the ability for a postal vote, than have to pay for a taxi and / or be forced to use up all their spoons in order to vote.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

A consequence of the rise in postal voting is that party activists spend much less time driving people to and from polling stations.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Here's an ingenious method, which is too complex at the moment, but we can work on it ...

... at some previous point, at another PC, a bank ATM or whatever, you put a set of shapes/images into a sequence
1 = Circle, 2 = Cross, 3 = Wavy Lines, 4 = Square, 5 = Star, 6 = BP logo, 7 = Star of David, 8 = David Beckham, 9 = map of Lithuania ... whatever. And pick a symbol for "spoil this ballot" which if you use it, makes the rest of the ballot invalid.

Now when you go to vote online at home, you get presented with a ballot paper, and a stack of images which include the ones you numbered, plus another half dozen random ones. You put an image against each candidate. Only you know what sequence that represents. In a single vote, then the image that is "1" is your selection. In a multiselect/Australian ballot then 1,2,3 etc. may be important.

Even if someone is looking over your shoulder, they won't know what number each symbol represents. And if you are being coerced you can use the "spoil this ballot" symbol against a candidate to cancel out your vote ...

... too complex to remember the shapes/sequence ... but for a simple "X" ballot, then pick one of the dozen or so shapes for "X" and the rest are mapped to blank, and you have to put all the shapes on the ballot, so anyone watching still can't tell which is the X shape.

[andrewducker]

If the "other place" is a PC, then anyone "helping" them will just help them do both bits.

If the other place is an ATM then they might as well go to the actual voting booth - my local polling station was actually closer than the nearest ATM...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

The point is that you can use the "other PC" or ATM at any point in the year before the election, when you have five minutes of privacy to yourself ... it's not like the day of the election where you can be watched for the whole day or made to vote at a particular time/place.

Proxy votes and postal votes already suffer from the problem you identify, and so it's something we already know about and don't do enough about it.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

The ability to vote from *my* own home is less important than *my* ability to vote in privacy. If I were significantly limited in mobility then being able to vote at all might require voting from home. I see no reason that this should be universal.

[andrewducker]

How would you set up a system so that it's not taken advantage of? The important factor here being telling the difference between individuals making a free choice to vote in their own home and individuals being pressured into postal voting so that their vote might be taken advantage of.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

You could have (in places like hospitals or nursing homes where there are multiple people postal voting for reasons of immobility) an in-effect mobile polling station where observers (electoral commision and parties) visit to observe secrecy of voting. One could require more verification of reasons for application for postal ballots (people pressuring others to apply for a postal ballot and give a false reason are committing an offence at that stage rather than when they vote, so there's a window for them to get noticed *before* the election), possibly on a random sample basis, which might be a deterrent to large-scale pressure.

None of this is perfect, but it would help.

[andrewducker]

That's a good point. Doing it for hospitals, etc. would be something I could get behind.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I don't know what postal ballots look like, but I think I'd design something that had to be sealed and signed over the seal with large instructions on outside in multiple languages that it should be completed with no-one else in the room and that it's a criminal offence to coerce or bribe anyone else to vote a particular way. Decent verification of signatures needed. Again, not perfect but might cut down on some varieties of fraud.

[andrewducker]

That kind of social pressure can be very effective in the right situation. Good idea!

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I have in mind something that is folded and one-piece so you can't give someone the ballot and not the envelope.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

The Electoral Reform Society has produced a report on increasing turnout in elections - page 17 onwards covers postal voting and mitigating some of the worst problems.

[andrewducker]

Perfect! I shall take a look at that tonight.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

I actually like walking to the polling station, checking out the tory posters just outside, saying hello to the tellers, chatting to the officials, drinking in the smell of the plywood, stealing the stubby pencil ... it's all good fun.

There would always have to be a postal vote or equivalent, for people who can't attend, but I think it should have been retained for people who are unable to attend. Attendance of the vast majority of voters at a specified place where people are vigilant is one of the ways fraud is prevented.

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

For me, personally, I'd rather have the votes out in the open so stealing an election would be more difficult. Of course, I'm in NA (N/A?), so it's probably (?) more of a concern here...

[bemusedoutsider.livejournal.com]

Postal voting (or phone voting) enfranchises people who otherwise could not get to the polls: elderly, poor, sick, those with small children, those who work long hours, etc. A great many people fall into those groups, and tend to vote in the same way when they can vote -- ie they vote for more social services. Postal voting has been very popular in Oregon with no problems.

Pressured voting sfaik would affect a relatively few people, and it would happen on both sides of most issues, thereby cancelling itself out.

The real problem I see with postal voting is that some massive fraud could be done in graveyards.

[andrewducker]

We have a long history of people being pressured into voting in blocs in this country. Strangely, I don't believe that we've had the same problems with the dead voting that the US has had.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

How does someone who is blind or mobility impaired such that they cannot write vote without assistance? Are there braille ballot papers, for instance?

[andrewducker]

http://www.actionforblindpeople.org.uk/news/accessible-voting,194,SNS.html

[drplokta]

Mobile polling stations for the disabled, visiting them in their homes, over a two week period before the actual polling day. It would cost more, but proper democracy isn't cheap.

[andrewducker]

Yup. See the other suggestion about doing similar things for hospitals. That's definitely worthwhile.

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

I dunno if this is just me - but I don't live in a headspace where I don't want people to see how I voted.

I also wouldn't be coerced in any way, and enjoy the ability to vote from my own home, so have voted for that.

[andrewducker]

Well, I don't care if people know that I voted Lib Dem. But there are still people out there who do dodgy things for votes (see that link) and I'd like to try and plug those gaps.

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

I think you're right in worrying about it, but it does seem quite rare to me.