Bertie clearly wants to get electronic voting in before he goes in four years time (one year before his term is up). On the drama of physical counting: “It’s exciting for a handful of people, it’s butchery for everybody else…”
I share many of the concerns of Andy Pollak, whose recent post ‘My Response to the Slugger Begrudgers’ zeroed in on the ‘relentless flow of negativity’ of some Slugger commentators. Pollak’s post was largely concerned with the medium of the blog. Indeed, I think the anonymity of the online world encourages extreme discourse and allows [...] read our review »
Having somehow managed to avoid watching a single episode of the widely praised West Wing TV series I was delighted to discover the entire Box set in my Christmas stocking – and with enough spare time over the holidays to give it a good lash. But with 10 episodes of the first series under my [...] read our review »
Which reminds me…. Platform for Change’s driving force Robin Wilson has produced a corrective to the notion that the lessons of the NI conflict are easily exportable. Like myself, Robin is associated with the Constitution Unit. He introduced his new book in a CU blog which I here reproduce. The water crisis in Northern Ireland [...] read our review »
Beware electronic counting.
If it is done as I have seen it done in Australia (state electoral office count of local government election) it is far from transparent.
I am not saying that it is inaccurate, but that it doesn’t show how votes have transferred.
If the public can’t see how the transfers have worked it makes any attempt to to progress specific issues and campaigns on a cross-party basis pointless.
It may make life easier for polies who want to get to bed earlier, but it will do nothing for democracy and the empowerment of communities.
Of course electronic voting – not just electronic counting of paper votes – is a different kettle of [stinking] fish and should be avoided at any cost!
I agree Barry.
There may be a case for electronic counting but no way should electronic voting be considered.
Hackers show us continually how computers can be manipulated.
It’s just that election counts in Ireland (Here and There) just take too long – people have to sleep mun. Can’t they just shove all the votes / preferences in a spreadsheet and press a button !!!
I wouldn’t trust an electronic result further than I could throw it.
It may take longer (but this is democracy dammit!) – but there is something about being at a count centre, watching the ballots being counted, with each party’s agent there to ensure fairness – that is proper democracy and whether you are winner or loser you can feel confident of the result.
Electronic counting amounts to a dilution of democracy :
- interference with the vote, whether intentional or (more likely) due to incompetence, is hidden in the bowels of the machine.
- there is no way for someone without IT expertise to understand how the machines work. This means that agents of the political parties and independent observers cannot supervise the count process, leaving it open to accusations of fiddling.
- there is no way to prove for certain that the vote entered on the machine is the vote which was recorded.