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

[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.