I voted with my wife in the local elections on Thursday. Imagine my shock when I realised that the so-called 'secret' ballot is the exact opposite. While my ballot paper doesn't have my name written on, it may as well do.
I walked in, and gave my voter number, which was written down on a piece of paper, next to my ballot number. I was given the corresponding ballot paper, and voted. How in the world is that 'secret'?! I can understand they want to keep a record of who's voted, but to record our individual voter number next to our ballot number means someone could identify exactly who everyone voted for.
I almost spoilt my ballot paper in protest – perhaps I will in future elections when faced with a choice of near-identical candidates who I know next to nothing about.
Surely democracy should be more exciting than this? Is it just me? I feel like we need to reform our political system completely, away from the party system. The parties used to have major ideological differences. Thanks to New Labour, and the move to the centre-right of all the major parties, they are all pretty much the same, except for the people in charge.
Perhaps we should go for a system where we vote for positions in government as well as local MPs. I don't know, but there must be a better way. And while we're at it, let's make the ballot really secret, and not just pretend it is.
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Some dreadful rubbish has been written about the “secret ballot” and this item is wide of the mark, I’m afraid. Your elector number was recorded alongside the numbers of the ballot papers, but those separate pieces of paper will never come together again unless a court orders that.
After you marked your ballot papers you put them into the sealed ballot boxes, so the polling clerks who recorded your elector number could not see your completely ballot papers. When voting was over, the elector number recording sheets were sealed up by the Presiding Officer and delivered to the Returning Officer at the counting centre. Those sheets remained sealed up and were not inspected.
When the ballot papers were counted no-one could see the ballot paper numbers on the back because the ballot papers must be kept face up during the count.. If ballot papers are scrutinised during the count, for example, to adjudicate on doubtful or unclear vote markings, the ballot papers are kept face up so that no-one can see the number of the ballot paper and associate it with the vote recorded. After the count was completed all the ballot papers were sealed up. All the sealed packets must be delivered to the designated official and kept securely for one year, when they must be destroyed, again securely. No-one may have access to any of those papers except by the order of a court (not easily obtained). So how could anyone ever find out how you had voted?
The reason for having these records is to enable an investigation of alleged electoral fraud after the election, but only if a court makes the required order. When the ballot paper numbers are scrutinised in such an investigation, and reconciled with the elector records if necessary, the ballot papers are kept face down, so that no-one can see how any elector voted.
If the cross-referencing records of ballot paper numbers and electors’ numbers did not exist, the risks of abuse of the voting process would be much greater and would unverifiable. But the mere existence of such records does NOT compromise the secrecy of the ballot.
Thanks for detailing the process involved – I am sure that no-one looks it up at the moment, but what if the government was less scrupulous, could it not find out who voted for whom? It is at least good to know that ballot papers are destroyed after a year!
I don’t understand how recording voter numbers next to polling cards helps avoid electoral fraud – surely the process of noting down who has voted (without recording their ballot number) is enough in this regard? I don’t see how recording the ballot number as well guards against fraud any more.
I’m agreed with you on the problems of the political system. For what it’s worth, my best suggestion would be to make party political whipping illegal, so you effectively had all MPs as independents (read a biography of Wilberforce for how this might work). Essentially, it would tie the interests of the government more closely to the interests of the individual MPs, more closely to the interests of their constituents. Probably with a directly elected PM as well.
I know there are significant holes in it as an idea…
When you say “what if the government were less scrupulous”, you imply there would be corrupt practice on the part of a significant number of non-government officials if anyone were to get access to the documents after they had been “sealed up” for secure storage. It would be difficult to keep corruption on such a scale completely secret, and the penalties are severe (fines and imprisonment)..
And the task of bringing the vote and elector information together should not be under-estimated, as there is no electronic record of that. Even when the votes are counted electronically (as in the London elections), there is NO electronic record of the lists of ballot paper numbers and elector numbers of the electors to whom those ballot papers were issued, only the hand-written lists. It would take a lot of people a lot of time either to find the vote cast by a given elector or to trace a given vote back to the elector who cast it.
I am not familiar with the detailed case law, but there could be circumstances, depending on the nature of the alleged fraud, in which it would be necessary for individual voters to confirm or deny that they had marked their votes on particular ballot papers. I am sure this is very rare and can be ordered only by a court. But it does provide the only means of confirming or refuting certain types of electoral fraud. The fact that this is possible, and that the penalties are severe. is a good deterrent. The well-publicised cases of electoral fraud that have been investigated, prosecuted and convicted have all involved much simpler fraudulent activity, mostly relating to postal votes.
I just found this on wikipedia, the ultimate source of all knowledge (!):
“The UK secret ballot arrangements are sometimes criticised because it is possible to link a ballot paper to the voter that cast it. Each ballot paper is individually numbered and each elector has a number. When an elector is given a ballot paper, their number is noted down on the counterfoil of the ballot paper (which also carries the ballot paper number). This means, of course, that the ballot is not secret at all.
“This measure is thought to be justified as a security arrangement so that if there was an allegation of fraud, false ballot papers could be identified. The process of matching ballot papers to voters is permissible only if an Elections Court requires it, and this is an extremely unlikely occurrence. The legal authority for this system is set out in the Parliamentary Elections Rules in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot#United_Kingdom
Another helpful document is this one:
http://tinyurl.com/2mbtw7
The USA has a different method, which ensures that people can only vote once, but does not keep a record of the individual ballot papers. Perhaps we could move to such a system here? Vote tracing has not been done in a Parliamentary election since 1911 – so perhaps it isn’t really necessary?
I had forgotten about that Factsheet from the Electoral Commission. It is certainly much more useful and relevant than the paragraphs in Wikipedia. The Wikipedia statement “This means, of course, that the ballot is not secret at all.” is not a statement of authoritative fact, but only the opinion of the person who wrote it – and that could be anyone.
If by “secret” you mean that it would NEVER be possible to associate a particular ballot paper with a particular elector, then no, the UK voting method is not “secret”.
But if by “secret” you mean “secret in practice” so that it is only in the most extreme and highly abnormal circumstances (a court hearing, a court order and under the supervision of the judge) that the full vote tracing procedure can be carried out, then the UK voting method is “secret”.
I am certainly happy with the practical definition of “secrecy” in respect of the procedures we use to handle ballot papers in the UK. I suspect it is because full vote tracing IS possible, with all the legal safeguards, that it has not been found necessary to use the procedure in Parliamentary elections in the UK since 1911. The EC Factsheet does, however, state that full vote tracing has occasionally been done for local authority elections – so the courts have considered there is a need for it. If fraud is confirmed by a court after an election, there is no other way of removing the fraudulent votes other than by vote tracing for the relevant ballot papers.
The procedure described in the Wikipedia article for public elections in the USA does provide absolute secrecy, but does not seem to me to provide any effective control either of the electors who voted or of who completed the ballot papers in the ballot box. It almost reads like an invitation to engage in “stuffing the ballot box”. It is a very simple matter to get the two numbers to agree.
“When you say “what if the government were less scrupulous”, you imply there would be corrupt practice on the part of a significant number of non-government officials if anyone were to get access to the documents after they had been “sealed up” for secure storage. It would be difficult to keep corruption on such a scale completely secret, and the penalties are severe (fines and imprisonment)..”
Edinburghvoter, although your optimism is commendable, unfortunately its not quite as clear cut as you’ve made out in the above passage.
Blind faith in the government, their policies and “the system” is a fantastic thing to have if you want to grow up thinking that everything is rose coloured and bad things do not happen. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that.
A couple of points to think about:
– You say that a court order is required bring the pieces of paper together. So, essentially, you’re saying that it comes down to the decision of one man/woman? Who appoints judges? The Lord Chancellor. Who appoints the Lord Chancellor? The prime minister (actually, I think its the queen in both cases but its under their advice…)
– “When the ballot papers were counted no-one could see the ballot paper numbers on the back because the ballot papers must be kept face up during the count”
People also aren’t supposed to steal, kill, commit fraud, etc. And yet we have a prison overcrowding problem…
What I’m getting at is that “the law”, so to speak, means nothing in the great scheme of things. If it did, people wouldn’t commit crimes.
In comparison, I’m also not a big fan of the government ID database. Why? Because I don’t like the idea of that level of detail of my life sitting on a database somewhere. Not because someones already hacked it, but because someone will try! Do you think they care that they could get 10 years in prison if they manage it? And besides, will it even matter that they were caught if the details are already sold on?
Optimism is good, but prevention is much better. The fact that the link between these pieces of paper exists means something could go wrong. TBH I can’t think of a better system than the one we have in place, but then I’m not paid to.
Chris, you clearly believe in conspiracy on a grand scale – I don’t. But that does NOT mean I have blind faith in the government, their policies and “the system” – I don’t. And “bad” things do happen, but no so bad that all election procedures are corrupt or corrupted and thereby rendered “not secret”. Nor would it be worth anyone’s effort to invoke the real conspiracy machinery for the sake of learning how I had voted in a local council election.
You wrote:
” – You say that a court order is required bring the pieces of paper together. So, essentially, you’re saying that it comes down to the decision of one man/woman? Who appoints judges? The Lord Chancellor. Who appoints the Lord Chancellor? The prime minister (actually, I think its the queen in both cases but its under their advice…)”
Do you really believe in conspiracy of such a grand scale for something so trivial (in the overall scheme of things) as looking to see how you had voted in the local government elections (the original topic)?
You wrote:
“What I’m getting at is that “the law”, so to speak, means nothing in the great scheme of things. If it did, people wouldn’t commit crimes.”
But you are forgetting that all of this (in relation to ballot papers) is done under the scrutiny of representatives of those who might have soemthing to gain and those who might have something to lose. So if it happens, and someone thereby gains an advantage, the illegal act of having looked where you shouldn’t, will not stay secret for long. Either someone will boast about the information they have obtained, or an opponent will cry “foul”, or the elector whose secrecy has been infringed will lodge a complaint when they are made aware that someone has seen how they voted. If there is anything to gain or lose politically, you can be sure the political opponents will all be watching each other like hawks – as we’ve seen in the alleged postal vote frauds, some of which have been investigated and prosecuted, leading to convictions.
ID databases are something else – and there I share your reservations. But secrecy for all practical purposes in paper based elections in the UK? – not a problem.