Has anyone heard of an election being conducted with ballot papers that are personalised to the individual casting the vote, e.g. they link a name and address to the vote being cast?
The reason I ask concerns the Scottish elections which place a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that each ballot paper was barcoded, apparently to aid electronic counting of the papers. A friend of mine told me that he walked into the polling station and queried why he was being given a barcoded ballot paper, at the same time as his name was crossed out on the list of eligible voters. He claims that the polling station officer told him that it was just to make sure that an accurate record existed of who had voted and not to worry about it. He then handed the ballot paper back and walked out without voting, incensed at the idea of his vote being monitored.
Did my friend just get the wrong end of the stick, some ill communication with the polling station officer? I cannot imagine that such a record could legally be compiled.
Naturally, the laws where you are will determine whether that was legal or not.
Here where I am it’s common for ballots to be numbered and for each voter to be numbered. When I check in they mark off my name (I’m voter numer 123456), and also to write down that I was given ballot number 765432. This is so at the end of the day they can account for every blank ballot they started with. The ballot would either still be there unused or would be assigned to somebody.
But, and here’s the part your friend probably missed, the ballot paper is perforated into two parts, one with the number, one without. The voter tears off the serial number part & keeps it. The part with the votes on it has no number when it goes in the box. I’m sure some dummies leave their number chit on the ballot, but I’d also bet those are removed as the first step in counting, at least if the counting team is honest.
I agree I’d be outraged if the number stayed on the part I dropped in the box.
The only thing missing from your post is, how is the barcode tied to the voter’s name? If the ballot given was taken from the top of a stack and none of the barcode info is recorded against his name, there would be no way to tie him to his ballot. I think your friend was misguided as to the use of the barcodes.
There’s always been a number assigned to each voter in every electoral district; we all get sent a polling card with it on maybe a month before any election.
When you get your ballot paper(s) they check a register which has your na,me used to write the number on it before they handed it to you for voting.
I assumed this year that the barcode scanner was merely an update of the technology!
So every vote is, theoretically, traceable to an individual, and has been for decades, at least.
There’s always been a number assigned to each voter in every electoral district; we all get sent a polling card with it on maybe a month before any election.
When you go to vote before you get your ballot paper(s) they check a register which has your name, address & number in it and then they used to write the number on the ballot slip before they handed it to you for voting.
I assumed this year that the barcode scanner was merely an update of the technology!
So every vote is, theoretically, traceable to an individual, and has been for decades, at least.
edit to add: sorry about the double post; hit the submit button by mistake when I was interupted to do some work!
Thanks for the comments, I think I appreciate how the record-keeping works now. The ballot papers were all numbered and barcoded. The barcode just identified the ward where the vote was cast, for electronic counting purposes. The number of each ballot paper is recorded by the polling officer, though, as Meurglys says. So it is possible in theory that a record of everyone’s vote could be established, but it would require someone going through a big sack of votes and relating them back to the list at the polling station. I didn’t realise this was how things worked.
I was more concerned/interested at their being a digital record of votes cast, e.g. someone presses a button on a PC and a complete voting breakdown of a ward appears with names and addresses.
Alternatively, it would be relatively easy, if time-consuming, to go through the votes for any particular candidate and check who voted for them. A candidate advocating the overthrow of the state or supporting banned terrorist groups for instance.
I understand that in the past the security services have considered obtaining authority to do this (wrt pro-IRA candidates), although I don’t think they actually did. But I don’t suppose we’d know if they had!