Becky Hogge, near divine ORG goddess, has asked Geeklawyer to mention ORG’s e-voting initiative for May. They need volunteers in certain areas to observe the trials of e-voting. Lawyers would be particularly well suited. Training given and it would allow you to play a much needed part in directly protecting an important emerging technology for democracy.
The Labour party has been guilty of well documented electoral fraud. Find a large bunch of immigrants, get them to sign blank voting forms and then fill in the local labour party candidates name. It’s not corrupt because you know they would wish to do that themselves if they thought about it really really hard. And weren’t stupid foreigners.
Now the government is seeking to pioneer radically new forms of electronic electoral fraud. Huzzaah!!
Those of us who have cast a rheumy eye towards the US will recall well the Diebold debacle and Floridian elections; which produced astonishingly convenient and statistically hugely anomalous results favouring the Republicans.
While enhancing voter turnout is a Jolly Good Thing(tm) e-voting will be at a heavy democratic price if it turns in skewed, or even dishonest, results. The latter was a real worry in the US, and if crooked local Labour politicians are prepared steal paper votes and risk jail will they not be much more tempted to steal electronic votes when this will be untraceable and much much more effective?
Geeklawyer says that the government should worry less about saving election costs, drop e-gimmicks and engage with the voter by behaving better, actually responding in a mature way to the electorate and stopping doing ‘policy by Daily Mail headline‘. Then people may be a tad less cynical and bored with the entire process.
It may well be possible to make e-voting secure and beneficial: we just need to keep politicians out of the process.
Or watch them very very hard.
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