“X” Marks the Spot

Posted on 06 May 2010

You’d have to be living on a different planet to have missed the constant publicity and coverage of the politician’s campaign to get our vote in the recent election, but this has spurred me into thinking about how we vote.

Application voting systems require a full audit trail and absolute integrity of data, a lost or misplaced vote here and there could critically alter the legitimate outcome. The votes or scores captured are sent via a wireless connection to a central system for instant analysis and scoring, giving the results within seconds of the last vote or score being recorded. Codegate has created electronic voting systems for numerous organisations, enabling individuals judging an event or activity to capture their score on mobile, hand-held computers.

Compare this to how we determine which party or politician we want to represent us in the National or Local elections and manage the country in which we live, where we manually write an “X” on a ballot paper and post the slip, having folded it to hide our intentions from prying eyes, into a ballot box. When voting has finished the ballot box is delivered to the counting house where the slips are removed, unfolded and placed into piles by party or politician, ready for counting. Or, for those unable to physically attend the polling station, a postal slip is completed, folded and inserted into an envelope and posted to the counting house.

If this strikes you as somewhat archaic, then we’re on the same wavelength. Over 75% of us are lucky enough to have a broadband connection at home and in its ‘Digital Britain’ report, the Labour Government confirmed it wants to deliver broadband access of 2MB/s or greater to virtually all UK households by 2012. So why with all this earnest on being digitally connected can’t we vote on-line? OK, right now not everyone has broadband or a computer, but the polling booth must be connectable by broadband – they are in population centres after all!

Here’s my vision;

1. Send out the Official Poll Card with a unique barcode representation of the individuals existing electoral registry number.
2. Equip the Polling Station with as many workstations with touch screens as there are booths and attach simple slot read bar code scanners.
3. Connect these workstations to a Local Area Network, which in turn is connected to a broadband service.
4. When a voter places the bar code of their registry number under the scanner the workstation then;
   • accesses a central database to confirm this voter hasn’t already voted, looks up and displays the voter’s name and address and asks for confirmation that the voter’s details are correct
   • displays a list of candidates the voter touches the candidate of choice and “X” is displayed alongside their selection
   • asks the voter to confirm their selection(s) when finished
   • updates a central database confirming the voter has made their choice
   • updates the central database count of votes by delegate.

Postal votes would be unaffected; as they already have a bar-coded representation of the voter’s registry number and once the above system was proven, it could be expanded to include home voting through a web connection and mobile voting through mobile smartphones. Ultimately, when the Government’s target of broadband for all becomes a reality, the Polling Station would surely be unnecessary.

Once votes were cast, and in almost real-time, results could be displayed showing full statistical analysis increasing interactivity and visibility to the nation. Live debate and consideration could be conducted with much greater foundation. The whole experience would become much more insightful for those who are ultimately affected by the outcome, making them feel more involved whilst also removing many barriers which stop so many people from bothering to vote.

What would it cost? Any estimation by me would be something of a stab in the dark, but surely it would be a lot less than the current manual system! Whilst the up font costs may be significant, a proven system through testing would reap rewards in the long run. In this digital age, the most important matters for our everyday lives should simply not be handled by fallible manual systems.