[pp.int.general] Towards a secure eDemocracy platform based on Web service standards

[Jack Allnutt]

The idea of multiple ballot papers seems like a really crazy way of
doing things, not just for privacy and persuasive reasons (and
economic ones for small parties, especially if the party is
responsible for printing the ballot papers itself(!)) but also for
ecological reasons.

In the UK, each elector is issued one ballot paper by the presiding
officer which lists all of the candidates (or parties in elections
that use a list system, like the European Parliament elections or the
proposed elections to our upper chamber).

This way, the secrecy of the ballot is maintained, as there's no way
to guess which candidate/party the vote is for until it is on the
table being counted with the rest of them.

Having said that, in the UK each ballot paper has a serial number
printed on the reverse, which is written down next to the elector's
number when they are issued so that in the case of serious fraud, an
election court can order that voters can be identified. This is a
little scary, but AFAIK it's not been used in a very, very long time
(if ever) and there are measures in place to mitigate potential
hazards. For instance, it's a criminal offence to try
photograph/record ballot papers at a count and all ballot papers must
face up at all times when being counted (except where there's a
delayed count as in the European Elections. When this happens, the
verification part is done with every paper facing downwards and then
the subsequent count a few days later is done face-up so that never
are both sides of the ballot paper shown). Ballot papers which
identify the voter are also not counted towards the final tally.


-- Jack


On 14 July 2012 15:24, MRE <muriel at pirata.cat> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> In Spain you're not forced to go into the polling booth... although it
> seems like it would be a good idea.
>
> In fact, most people don't use it and they just take a single ballot
> and put in the envelope for everyone to see so in many cases, although
> who's voted what it's not in a public database, it may not be secret
> unless you really want to.
>
> Moreover, since large parties have the money to send advertising to
> all voters, they send it together with their ballot papers and
> envelope, so that many people does that at home and they don't even
> have to browse through less known parties' ballot papers.
>
> If they do it this way they can be forced by their husbands or
> families to vote whatever and no one would know because on the polling
> station they just have to put the envelope inside the ballot box.
> The same situation may happen when voting by snail mail, which is also
> another possibility for anyone in Spain.
>
> It seems to me that we're being much more strict with electronic
> voting than we're really being with standard paper voting. Probably we
> should change the paper voting law as well in some countries to be
> more strict about all this and enforce democratic principles.
>
> Cheers,
>
>         Muriel
>
>
>
> 2012/7/14 Maxime Rouquet <maxime.rouquet at partipirate.org>:
>> On 07/14/2012 03:31 PM, Kenneth Peiruza wrote:
>>> What happens in districts with only a bunch of voters? If there's 50
>>> voters in a tiny village, do you really think that the mafia-major of
>>> the village will not notice that you didn't stick to what he wanted?
>>> it's fucking easy, the one entering a privacy cabinet to hide what's his
>>> vote, that's the one who didn't voted what he wanted.
>>
>> I do not not for the rest of the world, but in France, it is mandatory
>> to get inside the polling booth, and if you take ballot papers you have
>> to take papers for at least two different people/lists.
>>
>> If you show what paper you put in the envelope, then the chairman of the
>> poll has to _refuse_ your envelope.
>>
>> Therefore, the only possible way of knowing for sure what a given person
>> has voted would be that everybody vote exactly the same.
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