UKC

Why are we having separate dates for the Local Elections and the Referendum? Twice in two months.

Each time thousands of people will be employed organising the voting and counting
Schools will be closed
Teachers will have to be paid for a day off
Parents will have to make arrangements for child care or miss work.

The cost to the economy must be huge

The timings are so close that surely it can't be beyond the wit of those involved to have arranged for these to have been held on the same day?

And whilst on this subject, why aren't such elections held on a Sunday when schools are closed and to minimise the effect on working people?

In reply to Trangia:

because the departments in the public sector involved are probably not very efficiency minded?


because all those involved would want double time for working Sunday, even the BBC swing-o-meter operator will want extra money for working through sunday night.

Overall I agree, many other countries have Sunday elections for the very logical reasons you state.

In reply to Trangia:
Somewhere I remember reading an article which included the government's justification about holding the elections on different dates (& add Scottish government elections to the list). From (possibly faulty) memory, we (the electors) would get confused.

In reply to Trangia:


Because all of us climbers wouldn't be able to vote on a Sunday unless they put polling booths at the crag.

In reply to Doug:


>


That doesn't surprise me, the patronising Government bar stewards........

In reply to pec:
Here in France elections are on Sundays with variable opening hours, with the voting stations staying open later in the larger towns & cities and, from memory, its fairly easy to get a postal vote if you'll be away. And the day trips organised by the local branch of CAF are organised such that its possible to get back in time to vote, at least that's the case here in Paris.

Anyone know why the UK votes on a Thursday? I guess the idea was that everyone would vote on their way to/from work or were not working & thus had plenty of spare time. Or was it based on some religous objection to voting on the sabbath?

In reply to Doug:


I think the original idea was that labourers were paid on a Friday and would spend their wages over the weekend on beer, so a Thursday would be their most sober time!

In reply to owlart:

Thats one claimed reason. Another anti sunday reason is said to be to avoid the influence of sermon.

I suspect though it was picked at random or possibly just to be different from Europe.

In reply to pec:

Exactly what I was going to say!

In reply to Trangia:



The polling stations are open for long enough to allow moist people to vote before or after work and don't forget that not everyone works a 5 day Monday to Friday week.

Beyond that I wonder whether our already woeful turnout would fall even lower if people saw Sunday voting as an infringement of their leisure time.

In reply to Trangia:

Whole polling station and bits of paper counted by handthing is bollocks anyway. Voting should be a case of taking your phone out and clicking a button.

In reply to timjones:


I rarely get this excited about the ballot options.

In reply to ultrabumbly:

That was a weather forecast, NOT a prediction on the state of arousal of the electorate

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


Do you honestly believe that we could set up a system that was secure enough to avoid the potential for massive electoral fraud?

In reply to timjones:


And those of us without a smartphone would be disenfranchised.

In reply to timjones:


Sure. If I trust my phone/computer for credit card payments, online banking and filing my tax return why wouldn't I trust it for voting.

I don't think we could create a 100% fraud proof system but I'm sure we could come up with a system at least as secure as the present paper based one and much more convenient.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


Maybe you'd trust it but I sure wouldn't. For that reason I never do online banking via mobile, I have a dedicated 'banking pc' at home for that, which is fairly seriously locked down and never does any extra-curricular browsing.

*checks tinfoil hat*

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


For the first two you might get a refund if it gets cocked up.
For tax return you also have an outside chance.

Dont know if you have noticed though there is a rather a lot of crime happening in those three areas online.
You then have the fundamental problem of trusting the source code.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Now you put it like that I am a fan
Possibly set it up to make it easier for some types of phones to use it than others.

In reply to Fraser:


I keep all my money in a dedicated box at home which is also fairly seriously locked down. Only a madman would trust a bank let alone a computer with it.

In reply to KevinD:

and bar anyone from voting that watches the likes of TOWIE etc on the same device.... I can get behind this.

In reply to ultrabumbly:

Credit to Paul Sinha

"Everyone should be allowed to vote in General Elections, everyone should be allowed to vote in the X Factor. Nobody should be allowed to vote in both".

In reply to KevinD:


Welcome to my fan club

In reply to timjones:



That still doesn't solve the problem of parents having to arrange child care or take a day off work because schools are closed

In reply to timjones:


Yes - just getting rid of the politicians would be a good start. They are the biggest frauds of all.

Building a secure voting system would be relatively easy.

In reply to Trangia:


That could just as easily be solved by not using schools as polling stations. I'm not aware of any in our area that use schools, why is it necessary and even if it is necessary why on earth do they need to close the whole school for it?

In reply to mp3ferret:




The software might be achievable but isn't it better that peoples vote is an entirely private event under the current system, without the risk of people looking over their shoulder and trying to influence or coerce them?

In reply to timjones:

You are right - but its not much different to the current postal vote system in terms of coercion.

In reply to timjones:

>

agreed

In reply to timjones:


I think its because its a)free (as far as the election teams budget is concerned), b)easy for council to arrange and c)disabled friendly.

Other choices will often fail one of those

In reply to mp3ferret:
One of the complaints I've seen mentioned frequently of electronic voting systems as used in the USA is that there is no paper trace allowing for a recount or to check fraud.

In reply to timjones:


People get too hung up on coercion and small amounts of vote fraud and lose track of the huge problems in the current system which could be addressed if we moved away from paper. There have been hardly any elections in my entire adult life where my vote actually influenced anything because I've always lived in constituencies where there was a clear majority for another party. Our whole political system is based on the constraints of a few hundred years ago where counting bits of paper was the only option and geographic constituencies appointing representatives to send to a central parliament was a reasonable solution to the difficulty and cost of travel and communication at a distance. Those constraints no longer exist and once the voting system is computerized there are options to upgrade the rest of the system into something more representative.

In reply to Doug:


Yup you have the problem of either conspiracy (have you seen how much campaigns cost nowadays? far better to buy the code monkeys) or incompetence (latter probably is more of a concern for the code monkeys who a)know themselves and b)QA)

In reply to Fraser:

I think the safest system, totally secure and incorruptible, would be to allow people without the use of id to get a paper slip, upon which they can make an anonymous mark which could then be counted by volunteers in a giant hall open to anyone.

In reply to Robert Durran:


On an entirely separate matter, where do you live again?

In reply to Willi Crater:


In my house.

In reply to XXXX:



I guess it's rather different in a fairly close knit rural community where you would need to be exceedingly lucky to get away with voting for someone else.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Is that the one that has a bed with legs that don't reach the floor due to all the money stashed under it

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


We could certainly have a different system if we used a computerised voting system. However this doesn't necessarily mean that we have to move to remote voting off our own devices. A computerised system using machines based at polling stations could offer the best of both worlds.

In reply to KevinD:

Why would these nefarious figures buy the 'code monkeys' when they could just buy the politicians after the vote same as usual?

That In reply to Robert Durran:

That would be 12 Yewbury Avenue?

In reply to Trangia:

I'm not aware of any schools round here that are used as polling stations. Similarly when I lived in Scotland they used church/town halls. That's the way to go where possible

In reply to timjones:


Not really because voting would still be such a hassle it would be a once every few years thing whereas with an electronic system it would be easy enough to ask for people's opinion far more frequently.

For example with a computerised system instead of every MP getting one vote they could get one vote for every person they represent. If you think the MP for your constituency is a dick you could choose another MP to vote for you - or for some specific vote in the House of Commons where your opinion is different from your MPs place your vote yourself.

In reply to Doug:


And I'd agree; that was my first thought...

In reply to Trangia:

Good thread juxtaposition at the moment!

In reply to The New NickB:


I thought that!

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

That sounds like a recipe for a total shambles to me. We need some reasonably long term stability rather than random changes of direction based on the whims of the public or more likely whatever lobby groups such as 38 degrees decide that they should try to influence this week.

In reply to timjones:

Why do you think the views of 60 million people would change more rapidly or be more susceptible to lobbying than the views of a few hundred representatives? You aren't going to get the lap dancing industry giving 30 million male voters freebies to try and get their licensing terms relaxed or banks handing out 'consulting' jobs to tens of millions of people. But that kind of lobbying works great on MPs.

It looks to me that countries with more proportional systems like Germany find it harder to make rapid changes of direction and provide more stability to business decision making than countries like the UK which see-saw between right wing and left wing.

In reply to timjones:


What about the dry people?

In reply to Trangia:

Teachers (certainly in Scotland) ARENT paid for a day off. They either aren't hired (Supply staff) or are set to work on curricular development/schools or quality improvement work/some sh!t paperwork to make their boss look good and get promoted - exactly the same as an Inservice Day.

However, 2 election days close together generally seems to reduce the importance/turnout of the second one...but then, multiple votes on one say apparently get us poor thick voters all confused. Tricky!

In reply to Trangia:

Personally I think it's about time we abandoned voting in person and moved to a more modern system involving online voting and postal voting.

I have a postal vote from when I used to be away all week with work, I've kept it as it is much more convenient - but online in some way would be more convenient still.

In reply to timjones:


The existing system is susceptible as well (as there is no requirement to identify yourself). Any replacement would just have to be no less secure.

In reply to Fraser:
>

Quite. You are simply being paranoid. Online banking is much more secure than anything sent via the post or an unencrypted landline telephone call.

In reply to Trangia:

The school wasn't closed when I was a kid, they used the main hall for it and the school day was replanned for that day to avoid use of the hall, e.g. extra form time instead of assembly.

There are enough non-school community buildings which could be used instead in any case.

In reply to Doug:


Phrased like this it does indeed sound stupid, but is a real issue in German state elections, which are sometimes but not always run together with the main, federal election.

Historically it can be shown that voters do let issues at one level influence their vote on the other. This is why state governments set their state election dates at the same day if they hope for support from the federal campaign (e.g. office holder's bonus if from the same party), or on a different day if they are e.g. worried that a protest vote against an unpopular government might carry over.

The price is that there is always an election somewhere, which prevents federal government from doing anything out of fear that any unpopular measure might damage their candidate at a state level.

Overall I would support fixed, narrow corridors for regional and local elections, one in parallel with the national election and one or at best two further dates during each national parliamentary term.

CB

In reply :

I've just received my postal voting papers for the local elections. OK there's plenty of paper etc being pushed through the letter boxes to help you make a choice, but also included id the Police Commissioner voting paper.

There has been zilch published so far about each of the candidates, so I don't have a clue about them. I've looked on line and here re no personal statements issued by any of them that I could find.

I'm not prepared to stick a pin in at random, and I feel angry that we are being asked to vote for individuals I know nothing about, with the winner in line to receive a not insubstantial salary from public funds.

I don't like the concept of not voting but I can't see any option so far as this ballot is concerned.

What a waste of space this Police Commissioner concept is

So the public in this area are being asked to do two votes at the same time. Pity they couldn't have made it 3 by including the Referendum vote on the same day.

It seems however from posts made above that Joe Public is too dim to comprehend that!

In reply to Neil Williams:

No one who suggests Online voting grasps how unbelievably bad an idea that it would be.

There is more money running on the back of an election than there is in almost any single bank account in the world.
Imagine you could hack the voting for US president, all whist never setting foot out your mother's bedroom.

This video by Tom Scott explains it better than I ever
could:
youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI&

It's not paranoia to not trust online voting, it's common sense.