Electronic voting
Here's a piece I wrote on the electronic voting fiasco here in Ireland. It seems ironic after recent revelations from Ohio
Electronic voting is great, isn't it? A country that struggled for hundreds of years to throw off the shackles of British imperialism and is now enjoying phenomenal growth rates on the back of a burgeoning software industry and lifting thousands of people out of poverty is sailing into a future of cyber-democracy while in the old colonial power they have to make do with the same old paper, pens and parties.
But that’s in India. Here in Celtic Tiger Ireland, in spite of spending over E52m and subjecting us to yet another one of those patronising TV campaigns (What next? Eat Spicy Food - But only in moderation) it seems that the technology can’t be trusted, that there isn't a sufficient paper trail, and that in general the whole thing is a bigger threat to democracy than having a party that got around 4% of the vote effectively calling the shots on every issue.
Why are we so scared of the technology? As that ad pointed out, it’s not like we’re unfamiliar with it. I myself spent most of my free time in my adolescence playing computer games. My parents thought that was because I was lazy and dysfunctional but more recently I’ve taken the view that I was civic-mindedly preparing for the day when this new form of voter participation was introduced. Now it looks like I might have to move to a more advanced country like India to get my wish.
It’s not that I don't share some of the concerns about the technology, though personally my biggest fear is that any result other than an Fianna Fail victory would be blamed on the voting system and declared null and void. It’s that I was excited by the prospect of more young people being turned onto politics by having voting in supermarkets or places where they sort of generally, y’know, like, hang. In Britain they’re planning to extend the franchise to 16-year olds but while more people in the 18-24 bracket vote in Big Brother than did in the last general election, as the prospect of trudging down to their draughty local school and queuing for an hour and a half for the chance to put an ‘X’ on a piece of paper doesn’t seem to appeal to them.
Electronic voting could change all that. Not only would it be faster, it could also be more fun, with the act of exercising democratic franchise being turned into a video game, so that if you wanted to vote for, say, Mary Harney, you could adopt her persona in a battle against migrants, welfare spongers, EU bureaucrats, Shinners, anti-war protesters, Berliners and anyone who asks her to lighten up and get a life. Prospective Sinn Fein voters, on the other hand, could play a game where they have don't have anything to do with planting semtex bombs in locations all over the UK
Voting in Supermarkets is a slightly dicier proposition. Most people do their shopping after work and are often too stressed out to know what they’re doing and can get things mixed up, so it’s possible that someone trying to buy some turnips and vote for Martin Cullen* might get mixed up, and vote for a turnip. If this happened often enough the turnip might get elected in his place, though it’s hard to see how the turnip could do any worse than the vegetable we’ve currently got managing our environment.
Should he go? Because of this fiasco and his pig-headed position on incineration, I’m of the considered view that he should be given the heave-ho and replaced with someone who knows which end of the razor to rub against his face.
There are those that will say that I’m trivialising the issues here, that the reasons that young people don't vote as much as their elders is that they don't have any faith in bourgeois democracy, that they know that politicians are almost all corrupt and that those of them who are politicised have more faith in direct action. Unfortunately, those of us who still cling onto some faith in democracy and believe that we shouldn’t have to have some sort of violent revolution to bring about a more just, more equitable and more environmentally friendly society aren’t going to be proven right on the electronic voting issue for quite some time.
* When I put his name through the spell-checker I got ‘Culled’ - Thanks, Microsoft
Electronic voting is great, isn't it? A country that struggled for hundreds of years to throw off the shackles of British imperialism and is now enjoying phenomenal growth rates on the back of a burgeoning software industry and lifting thousands of people out of poverty is sailing into a future of cyber-democracy while in the old colonial power they have to make do with the same old paper, pens and parties.
But that’s in India. Here in Celtic Tiger Ireland, in spite of spending over E52m and subjecting us to yet another one of those patronising TV campaigns (What next? Eat Spicy Food - But only in moderation) it seems that the technology can’t be trusted, that there isn't a sufficient paper trail, and that in general the whole thing is a bigger threat to democracy than having a party that got around 4% of the vote effectively calling the shots on every issue.
Why are we so scared of the technology? As that ad pointed out, it’s not like we’re unfamiliar with it. I myself spent most of my free time in my adolescence playing computer games. My parents thought that was because I was lazy and dysfunctional but more recently I’ve taken the view that I was civic-mindedly preparing for the day when this new form of voter participation was introduced. Now it looks like I might have to move to a more advanced country like India to get my wish.
It’s not that I don't share some of the concerns about the technology, though personally my biggest fear is that any result other than an Fianna Fail victory would be blamed on the voting system and declared null and void. It’s that I was excited by the prospect of more young people being turned onto politics by having voting in supermarkets or places where they sort of generally, y’know, like, hang. In Britain they’re planning to extend the franchise to 16-year olds but while more people in the 18-24 bracket vote in Big Brother than did in the last general election, as the prospect of trudging down to their draughty local school and queuing for an hour and a half for the chance to put an ‘X’ on a piece of paper doesn’t seem to appeal to them.
Electronic voting could change all that. Not only would it be faster, it could also be more fun, with the act of exercising democratic franchise being turned into a video game, so that if you wanted to vote for, say, Mary Harney, you could adopt her persona in a battle against migrants, welfare spongers, EU bureaucrats, Shinners, anti-war protesters, Berliners and anyone who asks her to lighten up and get a life. Prospective Sinn Fein voters, on the other hand, could play a game where they have don't have anything to do with planting semtex bombs in locations all over the UK
Voting in Supermarkets is a slightly dicier proposition. Most people do their shopping after work and are often too stressed out to know what they’re doing and can get things mixed up, so it’s possible that someone trying to buy some turnips and vote for Martin Cullen* might get mixed up, and vote for a turnip. If this happened often enough the turnip might get elected in his place, though it’s hard to see how the turnip could do any worse than the vegetable we’ve currently got managing our environment.
Should he go? Because of this fiasco and his pig-headed position on incineration, I’m of the considered view that he should be given the heave-ho and replaced with someone who knows which end of the razor to rub against his face.
There are those that will say that I’m trivialising the issues here, that the reasons that young people don't vote as much as their elders is that they don't have any faith in bourgeois democracy, that they know that politicians are almost all corrupt and that those of them who are politicised have more faith in direct action. Unfortunately, those of us who still cling onto some faith in democracy and believe that we shouldn’t have to have some sort of violent revolution to bring about a more just, more equitable and more environmentally friendly society aren’t going to be proven right on the electronic voting issue for quite some time.
* When I put his name through the spell-checker I got ‘Culled’ - Thanks, Microsoft
posted by seamus @ 4:35 pm
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