Britain’s voting system is no longer fit for purpose
The Victorians built a vast network of sewers and water
pipes pumping water in and sewage out of our cities. For the last couple of
years London
has seen a massive programme to upgrade and replace these creaking relics of
the past to handle life in the 21st century. And it wasn't just
sewers, the Victorians gave us a voting system too. One that has been exposed
to be in serious need of an upgrade.
The British voting system is no longer fit for purpose. Even
before the vote took place, we were subjected to misleading advertising telling
us to register online. You can't. As I imagine most of the 50,000 people that
downloaded forms to post off on the last day found out. The post-election
shambles seems to have everyone involved ducking for cover. Is it acceptable in
21st Century Britain
that those responsible have done nothing to fix a voting system that our
first-ever international observer's describe as "worse
than Kenya" and "possibly
the most corruptible in the whole world"?
It seems blindingly obvious in this digitally enabled age of
IT-led process transformation that we should be able to register, vote and
count those votes so much more efficiently and reliably if we use the right
tools and develop better processes to support them.
In my mind, the arguments against electronic voting fail
every possible test of logic. It's bizarre that we demand nothing less than
perfection from new systems when the current one is so flawed and open to
failure and fraud. It's not just those locked out of polling stations but also
the 14
year old boy who received voting papers and managed to vote without any
challenge as well as those who couldn't enrol in the first place.
The US electoral debacles, the Irish experience and the slightly flawed
nature of local government e-Voting pilots in the UK might not have helped
the cause either (as I write this, CNN is talking of ‘fixing' voting machines
in time for the Philippines' election without actually explaining what that
means). There are serious issues to be addressed with e-Voting and these cannot
be under-estimated. But they can be managed and mitigated. In reality the
problems aren't really technical or procedural, they are cultural.
If it's designed properly (and that's a big if looking at
those responsible for the current system), e-Voting is more reliable, more
efficient, more flexible and speeds up the count. We can limit this to voting
machines in polling stations but equally here is a chance to include internet
and mobile solutions, even to consider text voting, and extend the time period,
making voting easier and more accessible too. The New Zealand Electoral
Commission found that one third of New Zealander's said they would vote online
if they could!
I'm completely
convinced about the merits of electronic voting but until now I've doubted that
there was any public desire for change. At this election our democratic systems
have been exposed as flawed, failing and out of step. The public is losing
faith not just in politicians (that went a long time ago) but in the systems we
use to elect them; the voting process and electoral system are both rightly
under intense scrutiny. Bringing in e-Voting is a small but necessary step
towards rebuilding trust and confidence. After last week there is no compelling
argument not to change. The biggest challenge in the ID-averse UK will be verification but whatever we do, how
could it possibly be worse than the current system? My Oyster Card would be an
improvement on what we have right now.
Andy Williamson