h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well I asked a returning officer once if they could trace the votes, and he said yes.

I asked him if it ever happens and he said he didn't know.

I am not sure what happens to old votes - I think they are kept till the next election for that particular seat.

But no - it is not a secret ballot.

And yes - I will be cutting the number off my next ballot paper.

Ben

Abraham Lincoln (dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg):

"that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

To be part of the *people* we must actively participate in the democratic process.

We (in the so called Free World) get the government we deserve. If we are apathetic and idle, we will be governed accordingly.

Another Linclonism comes to mind - United we stand, divided we fall, although I am taking it out of context a little. One voice in the wilderness is unlikely to be heard. If there's no-one worthy of your vote listed on the ballot paper, find some like-minded people to pressure someone to support you to find a candidate who is worthy and urge them to stand.

six7's
Illegitimus nil carborundum

Somebody said previously...

It would take a lot of effort to sort through the votes to find out how Joe Bloggs voted...

Granted, but that wouldn't be the point. More interesting to the authorities would be...

Ok, there are 250 votes for the BNP, ok, now lets see who they are?

completely different tack now - since I became a 'Mrs' I now get much stuff from people like NIghtingales and littlewoods. I'm not old!

Anyhoo, if you ignore these things they eventually do give up. I'm sure these people get your address from the electoral roll. La Radoute admitted to me thats where they got my address from. I always tick those boxes to avoid further rubbish! These companies also target certain residential areas for things like credit cards and so on.


Worryingly, I heard on a consumer affairs programme a while ago that a company was selling a CD Rom or web access to all addresses and 'phone numbers in the UK - even those who are ex-directory. However, this may have been dealt with under the Data Protection Act.

Anyway, to quit rambling and get to the point, don't worry about the electoral roll. Your right to vote is one you should not hesitate to exercise if you want to. If you vote, you can moan about the country and governing. If you don't, no worries but don't complain. Well that's the way I see it anyway but there you are.

I shall go now,

Happy Friday,

the way i see it is that western democracy is a shame. its really a corporate oligarchy. the rule of the rich. basically, a party needs cash to advertise to be successful. all the possibilities are waste fo time to vote for. our lives wont change under tory or labour or liberal, so why bother even to get out of bed.

I can say for sure that Wandsworth Council either sell their electoral roll, or someone turns up at their offices and trawls through it for names to sell, since shortly after they got my surname mixed up with another very similar one from the same flat, junk mail started turning up for the nonexistent 'hybrid' person (my first name, someone else's second).

The vast majority was from credit card firms, along the lines of "*What* a valued customer someone with *your* wonderful record would be..."


Regarding spoilt papers, and encouraging the young, I think proper negative voting would be the best idea - if you don't really like any of the candidates, but really hate one, you should be allowed to cast a subtractive vote against them. (Given some minimum level of positive votes required for someone to win, to avoid fringe parties getting elected if voter discontent resulted in all large parties recieving negative totals).

It would allow discontent to be effectively targetted, and reduce the need for tactical voting. There can't be many things more annoying than someone carping on about having a 'mandate' when everyone knows they weren't the first choice of many people. Even were the same person to win as a result of negative voting cancelling out their competitors, they'd be less able to pretend widespread support, and would be more obviously the best of a bad lot, rather than a star.

As far as I can see, I should have as much right to say "Anyone but *them*" as "I support that one". I suspect that turnout might well improve.

That was me Whisky, and I think it would more likely be "Ok, there are 250 votes for the Socialist Workers Party, now let's see who they are."

Re: secret ballots - the number is there to combat electoral fraud. As I understand it, ballot papers are stored for a period of time (3 years?) after an election, as are the lists linking voter name to number. To bring the two together requires some form of judicial warrant.

Ben, I know I'm backtracking quite a bit, but yes I always make sure I'm not signing up for junk mail and suchlike, and I don't have any sort of store card, debit card or credit card (does a Tesco clubcard count?).

I haven't voted for so long because (1) I haven't been around when there were elections (out of the country, etc) and (2) nowadays it's not a matter of choosing the party with the best policies, it's a matter of who's the least likely to muck the public around.

Admittedly, now I've moved back to Scotland I will get my name registered up here and vote SSP - the only party that speaks any sense at all. And I'll be cutting off that corner, for sure.

Can you understand though why I'm so disillusioned?

Yes, a supermarket club card counts.

There are a couple of psychological persuasion techniques at work here. They are based on principles of something called "social influence".
People like to have a feeling of group identity. Advertisers of any kind play to this by giving their product a "personality" or an association with other humans. These are known as "granfallons". Calling their mailing list a "Club", sending out a little Club magazine with special offers only available to people who belong, well, you can fill in the rest.

The second is something called the "norm of reciprocity". They give you something and you feel obliged to give something back. Club points, vouchers, etc make you go there to shop.

But whats in it for them? You. Name, address, purchases you make, products you buy regularly, how much petrol you buy......
This information must be available to be sold on, I'm sure. Anyone who can tell us?

You've got a good point there, but I don't stick to one shop for things (I'll shop at any supermarket). Still, I can see what you mean by a 'mini-society' - never really thought of it that way. I've got all these cards I've had for ages, and I never use them. They just make my wallet look pretty

Fords_P: you may not use your Club cards but rest assured the supermarkets with your registration details will carry on using your name & address.

On the broader subject of 'why bother voting', I think its worth remembering that for every 'normal' person that doesn't vote the relative value of the 'nutters' votes increase.
(I can't define 'normal' but a concensus for the definition 'nutter' would no doubt include BNP, Trotskyites etc)

As others have indicated for themselves, I personally vote to keep the worst excesses out. I don't follow the 'if I can't have the whole thing exactly as I want it I'm not going to play' philosophy myself.

But its a free country. For now...

I have only read Post 41, so sorry if someone has answered this already.

The reason it has to be possible to identify the votes is that most of the voters are not known to the polling staff.
If they suspect that the person is impersonating someone else they can ask "Are you the person who appears on the register as xyz?" but if they get an affirmative answer they have to allow that person to vote.
If someone comes in later and insists they are in fact that person they have to be allowed to vote too, because you can't deny someone their right to vote, but the presiding officer has to fill in millions of forms to prove that he/she is not fixing the votes.

Someone could come later and say they hadn't voted but someone else had impersonated them and insist on seeing the proof.

The ballot papers (including the unused ones), marked copies of the register etc are all sealed under the tightest possible security and placed in a locked vault and kept for a set number of years (can't remember whether it's 5 or 7). They can only be opened on the instructions of the Home Secretary or someone (I can't remember exactly who), for a very good reason, and that would take place in front of observers (lawyers etc).
Even the presiding officers and deputy returning officers could go to prison for any irregularities.

It is a secret ballot, unless you come along after the election and insist on seeing the 'proof' that you have voted.

Even postal votes are secret. That's why there are so many odd bits of paper you have to fill in for them.
The people who are counting them never see the way someone has voted AND the name of the person who was assigned that number - there is a triple-blind system.

I promise you this is so. (You know how I feel about lies and corruption).

If you cut your ballot paper in any way it is counted as a "Spoilt" ballot paper and the vote is not taken into account.
Besides the number is in the middle of the reverse side (so it is possible to see it without seeing the vote) so you wouldn't be able to cut it off easily.

(Ben, would you really be so mean to someone who was working a 16+ hour day for less than £5 an hour - and couldn't leave until every discrepancy had been accounted for?)

Off to read the rest of the thread

Anyone can walk into their local council office and ask to see a copy of the current register and the council has to show it to them (just as your doctor has to show you your notes if you ask).

That is why I do not allow my daughter to put her real surname on the register - it's too distinctive - it would allow the perv to find us.

That won't stop her voting - you're asked "Are you the person whose name appears on the register as Joe Bloggs?" not "Are you Joe Bloggs?"

fords, you gueard your privacy jealously. I assume you haven't given your real name to any of the sites or email providers you're registered with then?

This thread gets more and more interesting as time goes on.

If I chose to spoil my paper, I might choose to do it by cutting off the corner with the number on. I might choose to do it by saying 'none of the above', or by saying 'a plague on both your houses' or 'balls to the lot of them'.



I had a postal vote in the last election (and had to pay extra for a next day delivery from Sweden to the UK - in fact the logistics were a laurel and hardy movie). There were envelopes within envelopes, but they all seemed to have references on them. I accept that no individual got to see enough to tally the reference with my name. But it seems to me that all of these physical systems were designed for a pre-electronic age.



Re: Store cards. It is worse than that. They are a deliberate and personally tailored (and often successful) attempt at social manipulation. The vouchers you get depend on the things you buy. Or more accurately, on the things you don't buy. They can get macro information about buying patters off the tills that off the tills anyway. This is Personal...

This is the reason I destroyed my supermarket card. At the time I was living in central Glasgow and had no car, so I was carrying my shopping home. Tescos could tell that I was a supermarket-tart because I did not buy enough for one household from them (I went to Sainsburys and Somerfield too, depending on which train I took home). And they could see from what I was buying (Tescos Finest rather than blue-stripe) that I was counting pounds but not pennies.

I would buy what I could carry, about £15 quids worth or so. They gave me vouchers which were only valid if I spent £20 or more. The woman on the information desk said that they were very rarely issued.

In other words it was a deliberate policy of Tescos to get low spending and infrequent customers to increase their average spend. I don't like being manipulated that cynically. So I no longer have a club card.

Only cash is cash. And the banks hate it - they cannot charge a percentage on cash transactions. But that is another story...



Fords, I can see exactly why you are so disillusioned. I was not trying to tell you we have a perfect shiny democracy. (And I am sorry I was so sharp in what I said). I am really glad that you are going to participate in Scottish democracy, and I am also envious of the Scots for your separate parliament. Now if only England could devolve from Westminster too....

Ben

What a wonderful idea

There is a book in the US bestseller lists at the moment entitled 'If God had Intended Us to Vote, He Would Have Given us Candidates.'
Pretty much sums up the way i feel about British 'democracy' atm.

Until such time as 'spoiled papers' lead to the possibility of a seat being VACANT in the eventuality of you posting the majority of votes then the spoiled ballot protest is actually helping to support the system, because even if the returning officer is forced to read out the number of spoiled papers, you still count as part of the 57% that voted for that system. I don't mean that in a conspiracy style way, merely as an indication that democracy has become a system in which the rich and powerful buy the government, regardless of policy statement.
Look at the way the national press and media deal with the difficulty. 43% of us don't vote and it is declared a crisis. A few people spoil their ballots and it is described as silly and childish, whatever the reasoning behind it.

Now, winkle that idiot Blair out and get Gordon Brown in and put Labout back to being a proper party and we'd have a choice again, and I'd vote. But that's a different story.

I say vote LibDem so we can all grow --plants in our conservatories.

Further to my earlier post, for 'Nutters' read Le Penn.

Blues Shark - you say that by spoiling a paper it is supporting the system and we shouldn't support it. I believe it is better to support our current system even with all of its faults, rather than allow groups with extreme agendas to gain power by default. How close is the French National Front to getting into power? and why? - voter apathy. Chirac is a discredited crook and the socialist guy a man with a charisma by-pass, but Le Penn is plain scary.

Mixing up French & English politics, I support the current system that allows people of diverse ethnic backgrounds to vote, the system that sees all citizens as having equal rights. Would this continue if the Le Penn in France (or the equivalent in the UK) had real power.

Apologies for ranting but the evidence of the dangers of not voting are there for all to see.