July 11, 2016
by Anne Miller
As the results of the Federal Election come trickling in there’s been a lot of talk that there has to be a better way.
I agree.
The Local Government results took forever, and now the Federal poll is taking forever … and a day.
But the cynic in me can’t help thinking there is something behind all this.
Can anyone remember vote counting taking this long in the past? Nup.
Predictably, there have been calls now from both sides of politics for electronic voting to be introduced (or more correctly, be extended as there is actually some very limited electronic voting now).
It would save all levels of government millions, once the initial infrastructure costs were covered.
And if a candidate dropped dead the night before the poll – or was disendorsed by his/her party – no problem … just hit delete.
The public servants at the Australian Electoral Commission would also be happy. Fewer casual employees would be needed after polling day and there would be fewer pesky party scrutineers to wrangle.
And even the conspiracy theorists, who believe that somewhere someone is rubbing out all the pencilled votes and replacing them with the “right” answer, may be partially mollified.
All very convenient.
But before Australia rushes down the all-electronic route, there are some very important considerations we should all be concerned about.
My first concern is anonymity. Everything done on a computer leaves a trail which can be traced back to the user. I certainly don’t want a phone app for voting, and I don’t want to be able to vote on my home PC or work computer.
The secrecy of the ballot box must be of prime concern to us all to protect voters from intimidation or retribution.
A second concern is hacking.
I don’t want people (Julian Assange?), or governments (China, North Korea, Russia?), or spies (CIA / MI5 / Mossad?) determining our next election result.
And thirdly, I simply don’t trust the technology.
I work with computers – and the internet – all day, and I know from bitter experience that things can go wrong, no matter how much care is taken with the programming.
A simple glitch, “fat” fingers or even a malicious coding error could wipe out all of a candidate’s – or a State’s – votes (a bit worse than simply “losing” a box of ballot papers).
Suddenly, a pencil and a bit of paper, and a bunch of old-fashioned scrutineers, don’t seem too bad.
