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

[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.