The case against electronic voting
If online voting really were like online banking when the bank said “someone spent £300 on Amazon this week” you would be able to say “wisnae me” — unlike banking, your vote is supposed to be secret from them, and such as them, as count it.
The Scottish government’s consultation paper on changes to the voting system makes many interesting and useful suggestions, from ensuing that election cycles don’t clash to addressing the problems of candidates appearing alphabetically on the ballot paper (it is little appreciated that the cunning placement of ‘Alex Salmond for First Minister’ might well have just swung it on the crucial government or list vote in 2007).
The proposal to extend the franchise to all legal residents is particularly welcome, and should certainly be used in any second Independence Referendum.
But the suggestions for electronic voting themselves are deeply flawed — and it shows in the consultation — which is all about the voting side, convenience, better access, higher turnout. It doesn’t mention the most critical aspect of voting — the counting.
What makes elections and democracy so successful is not the voting but the counting, and not the winners, but the losers. Democracy only produces social peace and harmony if the losers accept they have lost.
At present, with paper ballots, the election can be, and is, validated. Polling agents can inspect the empty ballot boxes before they are sealed for voting, parties keep turnout tallies, there is a box count on collection of the ballot boxes, and only then are the ballots counted.
All this goes with electronic voting.
After the IndyRef a couple of petitions calling for a recount because ‘it was rigged’ got north of 100,000 signatures — despite the SNP having a couple of thousand observers at the various counts. Russia Today was assiduous in promoting a dodgy video.
In West Lothian we were long blessed by our local nazi candidate: his claims of racial supremacy somewhat undermined by his job as a delivery driver for a Chinese takeaway. His derisory vote tallies were visible to him, his henchmen and us.
But parliamentarians should consider what happens if they had a charismatic local nazi — and there at the count he was emoting to an RT camera crew about how the election was robbed and he got 3,500 votes not 87.
As an exercise they should consider the speech that they would give to refute it. It must use the terms Diffie-Helman key exchange, elliptical curves and large prime factorisation both correctly and in language that the ordinary viewer can grasp.
Such a loss of transparency seems a very high price to pay for a small measure of convenience.
If you like this article please share it on social media and follow meon Twitter @gordonguthrie
Please consider responding to the consulation.
This article was first published in The Thunderer column in The Times.
