By: Mike Dimmick

Mike Dimmick — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:09:16 +0000

In the UK we still use hand-counted paper ballots and it’s a system which works. The final count may not be 100% accurate (but in cases where the last few votes matter, a great deal of care is taken to ensure that they are counted accurately) but it has the distinct advantage of being a completely open process – there is literally nothing to hide. All candidates and their agents are allowed to attend and observe the count so post-count challenges are remarkably few.
It does help that each individual election usually has its own completely separate ballot paper, and we vote directly on far fewer positions and measures. The most I think I’ve ever experienced in a governmental election was three (local, parliament, European Parliament) – for University student union council I think it was twelve although that was a single ballot paper if I recall correctly.
Usability errors can still occur. A few years ago, the ward boundaries in my town (Reading) were changed and all the councillors had to be re-elected (normally one third of all councillors were elected each year for a four year term, with no election every fourth year). The new boundaries created a new ward to be represented by one councillor, the remaining 15 to be represented by three councillors as before. The authorities decided to run each ward’s election by including all the candidates on the same ballot paper and asking each voter to place three marks on the ballot paper against their preferred three candidates. The candidate receiving the most votes would sit for four years, the second most popular for three years, and the third for two. I would expect most voters to vote for a ‘slate’ of three candidates from the same party, but the results were surprising: in all wards, there was a significant difference in the number of votes cast for the top three candidates, and in two, the third-placed candidate was from a different party to the top two. My feeling is that quite a few voters under-voted.
Counting is also simplified because we use first-past-the-post for most elections (i.e. candidate with most votes wins) but in some, e.g. European Parliament, some form of transferrable voting is used. This is again done with the original ballot papers by physically moving them between piles and recounting.
It seems to me that the US is optimizing their voting system for the rapid, automated collation of results, NOT for accurate recording by the voter of their preference and verifiable collation of the results. It’s not as if you need the results that quickly – there is more than two months between the election date and the inauguration date of the new President. In contrast a change of government in the UK happens on election night, if the result is sufficiently conclusive (as happened in 1979 and 1997 – indeed I think every occasion since 1974, where there was a hung parliament).

Comments on: Ohio Voters May Demand Paper Ballots

By: Mike Dimmick