Should, could, and how would Ireland introduce cross-county voting?

hatrickpatrick

Think of cross-county voting as essentially "domestic absentee voting" - the ability to vote in elections and referenda regardless of where you are in the country at the time.

Every time an election or referendum comes up, there seem to be countless people who are in Ireland, but can't vote because on that particular day they aren't physically present in the county or town in which they are registered to vote. The reasons for this can be quite varied - people who work in one place during the week and only come home at the weekends, or have super-long commutes, students living away from home during term time who have to skip voting if polling day clashes with an exam day or other day they absolutely have to be away from home, people who have to be at a meeting or conference for work on that particular day which takes place outside their home constituency, people who have made plans to be somewhere else in the country on holidays or visiting relatives, etc.

It certainly seems to me that for referenda, seeing as constituencies are totally irrelevant except in terms of building post-vote statistics, that it should be very easy to set up a system in which people could just carry their polling card with them when travelling and simply present it at whatever polling station they happen to be near on the day. The voting register can be checked online by any citizen, so it would be extremely straightforward to set up a database which queries that register, and then checks the individual off once they've voted so as they can't show up to a second polling station and vote again. Currently when you go to a polling station you have to find the table for your particular range of ID numbers and they have to find your name on a physical register, so such a change wouldn't increase waiting times or inconvenience - indeed, using a digital database system as I've described could actually make voting more efficient in terms of how quickly you could get it done, reducing queues, etc.

For elections as opposed to referenda it would be a little more complex. Perhaps you could have a system in which once you have been signed in to the aforementioned database system, the computer would print out a ballot paper specifically for you. Obviously the issue there would be that it would add an extra step in terms of the count - ballot boxes would have to be gone through and the papers sent off to the right constituency a bit like a post office sorting centre, so it would probably mean the end of same-day or next-day result announcements. Perhaps this means that unless we eventually move to an electronic voting system (which given the fiasco of previous attempts is probably an issue no government would want to touch with a barge pole, quite understandably), implementing this system for elections is beyond our capabilities.

But it certainly seems to make sense in the case of referenda, which we have fairly often in this country and which are often important enough that making voting easier should be considered a worthy cause. Particularly as so many recent referenda have divided along generational lines to some extent, and as far as I can see, having to be physically present in one's home county has a disproportionate impact on young people who move between 'home' and their college or work town on a regular enough basis to make it impractical to be able to say with 100% certainty which one they should register to vote in.

Thoughts?

Gunmonkey

The printing method you propose is the only realistic solution right now, but even then it could be prone to abuse/problems (how do you limit the polling centre to one printoff per registration, to prevent ballot stuffing...or if the first printoff fails to come through clearly or gets jammed). Could you push through a second registration if you need a second printoff?

Maybe limit this service to only major poling station (the primary school in my village wouldnt be one, but the poll station in a major town or two per region would) and have separate ballot boxes for local and outside regions, saves time sifting through every single ballot box for outside votes. Or have 2 colours (say local ones on pink paper and outside on blue) so can easily differentiate at a quick glance in case some sneak into the boxes.

Or try drag this countries systems into the 20th century and have designated e-voting machines for outside votes (again, only in major polling stations), but the locals are still paper based for now.

Peregrinus

Here in Australia, voting is compulsory - you get fined if you don’t turn out - and the flip side of this is that practical and effective arrangements have to be made to ensure that everyone can vote. This leads to a number of things which, if the will were there, could be replicated in Ireland.

1. You can vote at any polling station in your constituency; you don’t have to vote at the one nearest your residence.

2. In every constituency there is at least one polling station which carries a selection of ballot papers for every other constituency. So, in Irish terms, if you’re registered in Cork North-Central, but happen to be in Waterford on the day, there’ll be at least one polling station you can go to where you can identify yourself as a Cork North-Central voter and get a Cork North-Central ballot paper.

3. If you expect to be out of town on polling day, in every constituency there’ll be a place where you can vote in person up to about 10 days before polling day.

4. Mobile polling stations go around and set up for about 2 hours at a time in hospitals, residential homes, airports, etc. They have a selection of ballot papers for all the constituencies that they are likely to need.

5. Postal voting, obviously. But you need to prove a need for this - mobility impairment, being out of the country on the day, that kind of thing.

There are downsides to this. For example, the fact that you can vote at any polling station means that you can vote multiple times if you wish. This will be detected, since the lists of people who have voted at every polling station are compared, but doing that is a huge amount of work and, therefore, expense. Plus, while being identified means that you will be punished, there is no way to identify the ballots that you have cast, or to stop them from affecting the result of the election. And the count would be slower to start, since the ballots for, e.g., Cork North-Central cast in every other constituency have to be transported to Cork before the count can begin.

The ballots are all pre-printed; there is no printing on demand, since that makes control of the ballot supply virtually impossible, and opens up ballot-stuffing possiblities. Unused ballots have to be accounted for, as well as used ones. So it could happen that you go into the polling station in Waterford and ask for a Cork North-Central ballot, only to be told “Sorry, they’re all gone. Lot of Corkies in town today.” This doesn’t happen often, but it can happen. Usually, there’s two or three polling stations with out-of-constituency ballots, so you can try elsewhere, or you can go to the relevant polling station in the next constituency and try. But in theory at least, all these efforts could still fail. Even if they do, though, the number of people denied a ballot by the unavailability of printing on demand facilities will be tiny.

murphaph

Here in Germany anyone can request a postal vote for any reason. That seems to solve the problem.

Mrs OBumble

Peregrinus wrote: »

. Unused ballots have to be accounted for, as well as used ones. So it could happen that you go into the polling station in Waterford and ask for a Cork North-Central ballot, only to be told “Sorry, they’re all gone. Lot of Corkies in town today.” This doesn’t happen often, but it can happen. .

Similar happens in New Zealand except that polling station staff are authorised to hand-write a copy of the ballot for an electorate if the pre printed ones run out.

And smart polling place managers check in advance if there are events that will bring lots of people from a particular area into town that day eg matches, and ask for extra papers for there.

Peregrinus

murphaph wrote: »

Here in Germany anyone can request a postal vote for any reason. That seems to solve the problem.

Only for those who know in advance that they won't be able to vote conventionally on the day. Presumably, there's a cohort that doesn't know this, but still has the problem.

Plus, it introduces a different problem. The reason electoral authorities tend to be leery of the postal ballot is that it compromises the secrecy of the ballot and the independence of the voter. How do I know that there isn't someone standing over you to "advise" you how to complete the ballot? How do I know that there wasn't someone standing over you to "advise" you to apply for a postal ballot in the first place? The issue here is not just the extent to which the system is actually corrupted by factors like this, but the extent to which people are confident that it hasn't been corrupted. German voters may be sanguine about this, but other nations might be less so. Hence in most countries, there is at least some barrier to postal voting; some condition that needs to be satisfied in order to vote postally.

Peregrinus

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Similar happens in New Zealand except that polling station staff are authorised to hand-write a copy of the ballot for an electorate if the pre printed ones run out.

Your problem there is that a handrwitten ballot paper is easily identified by observers at the count. This compromises the secrecy of the ballot.

hatrickpatrick

Can anyone think of a problem with a national electronic system for checking the register and confirming voter identity using polling cards from any constituency, for referenda? Granted there are more problems with elections, but it strikes me that there's absolutely no reason somebody from Galway shouldn't be able to walk into a Dublin or Cork polling station, present their polling card and a passport or something, and get a ballot paper - considering that with referenda, ballot papers are identical nationwide (or at least, one would hope they are! )

Peregrinus

I don't see any fundamental problem, if the will is there, except that I wouldn't use polling cards as part of the system, for two reasons. First, they're not identity documents and don't pretend to be; the fact that I have hatrickpatrick's polling card in my hand does not prove that I am hatrickpatrick. Their function is to tell you which polling station you should vote at. (Arguably, if you can vote at any polling station, there is no need for polling cards at all.) Secondly, if the reason you can't vote at home is that you're away from home, it's quite likely that you won't have your polling card, which is sent to your home.

But, yeah; a practice whereby every polling station has the facility to check the national electoral register, plus a rule which says that you can establish your identity (not merely as hatrickpatrick, but as the hatrickpatrick who is registered at such-and-such an address, and not an entirely different hatrickpatrick of the same name) then you can vote: I don't see any fundamental objection to that.

But note that it does require a reconciliation of all the voters who have voted at any polling place to ensure that they have not also voted at another polling place. Otherwise I could vote at home and at one or more other places. That's not a trivial exercise.

oscarBravo

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Can anyone think of a problem with a national electronic system for checking the register and confirming voter identity using polling cards from any constituency, for referenda?

As someone whose job partly involves thinking about ways software can fail: yes.

If you introduce an electronic system on which something as important as an election depends, you have to be able to depend on that system. That means you have to identify all the things that could reasonably go wrong with it, and design safeguards against them.

What happens if the system crashes?

What happens if there's no Internet access?

How do you prevent it from being hacked?

How can you tell if it has been hacked, and what do you do then?

What do you do if the system acts strangely, such as denying everyone who presents an out-of-constituency ballot?

There's an entirely reasonable tendency among those of us who use technological solutions all day every day to assume that it's easy to build a technological solution to any problem - but if you talk to anyone who has to design a technological approach to a mission-critical system, you find out that it's anything but easy.

That's not to say it can't be done, but given that it's probably a much harder problem than you might have at first thought, it becomes reasonable to ask: is it worth it?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Peregrinus wrote: »

Here in Australia, voting is compulsory - you get fined if you don’t turn out -
.

It's a $20 fine!

Peregrinus

Grant Quaint Newspaper wrote: »

It's a $20 fine!

For a first offence, and provided you accept and pay a fixed penalty notice. If you take it to court, or have prior form, it's rather more.

Peregrinus

oscarBravo wrote: »

As someone whose job partly involves thinking about ways software can fail: yes.

If you introduce an electronic system on which something as important as an election depends, you have to be able to depend on that system . . .

Yes. The Australian out-of-constituency voting does not depend on online access; it depends on paper copies of the electoral register for other local constituencies held at every polling station, plus phone calls where necessary to verify claims about entries on the register for more remote constituencies.

Having said that, if you did introduce an out-of-constituency voting system that depended on the web and it failed, it would be a disaster but not a complete disaster, since people voting in their own constituency, which is the great majority, would be unaffected.

A couple of years ago there was much talk of introducing online voting in Australia. But then, last year, the Census Bureau attempted to run the 10-yearly census online; it was an unmitigated disaster. The website that you were supposed to use to lodge your online census return collapsed on census night; it was many days before most people were able to complete their census returns, and it remains to be seen to what extent this has affected either the number of returns or the quality of the infomration in them. We haven't heard a peep from anybody about online voting since then.

recedite

Make the whole country into one constituency. Make all voters show their passport or national ID card.
For local elections, keep the old system. If both were run on the same day, the out of town guy could vote in one but not the other.

CrabRevolution

recedite wrote: »

Make the whole country into one constituency. Make all voters show their passport or national ID card.
For local elections, keep the old system. If both were run on the same day, the out of town guy could vote in one but not the other.

Wouldn't that mean every voter in Ireland would have to rank several hundred politicians from 1st to nth preference on their ballot paper in order to fill 158 seats?

recedite

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Wouldn't that mean every voter in Ireland would have to rank several hundred politicians from 1st to nth preference on their ballot paper in order to fill 158 seats?

On the plus side, we'd all get a chance to vote Healey-Rae :pac:
TBH one huge constituency is not a great idea, except maybe for the EU parliament elections.
I do think a national list system in parallel with the local yokel list would be a good idea though. It would contain high profile people and party leaders. Surplus votes could then automatically spill over into your local TD of the same party, via the usual STV type process.

If you were out around the country, you could still vote for the national list candidates, but not the local list directly. You'd have half the voting power.

AbusesToilets

Why not simply allow for a number of days for a vote to tale place? Is there some particular benefit from it happening on just one day? Have a poll week, then at the end, tally up the results and publish them. Have a black out of any political advertisement during the course of the poll week.

Peregrinus

AbusesToilets wrote: »

Why not simply allow for a number of days for a vote to tale place? Is there some particular benefit from it happening on just one day?

It costs less. And the schools only have to be closed for one day.

Besides, we don't know how much of the abstention rate is attributable to people who have a difficulty that is specific to the particular day chosen for polling. It's possible that you could make this change, and incur significant expense, and find that it only made a marginal difference to the turnout.

AbusesToilets

Peregrinus wrote: »

It costs less. And the schools only have to be closed for one day.

Besides, we don't know how much of the abstention rate is attributable to people who have a difficulty that is specific to the particular day chosen for polling. It's possible that you could make this change, and incur significant expense, and find that it only made a marginal difference to the turnout.

Valid points certainly, but then, what's too expensive for a more engaged electorate?

Peregrinus

I'm not seeing much reason to think that extending polling over several days would result in a more engaged electorate, though.

If the reason people aren't voting is that they're not engaged with the process or the issues, how is extending polling over a number of days supposed to engage them?

AbusesToilets

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not seeing much reason to think that extending polling over several days would result in a more engaged electorate, though.

If the reason people aren't voting is that they're not engaged with the process or the issues, how is extending polling over a number of days supposed to engage them?

Well, it was more in response to the original post with reference to folks having issues voting due to them being out of their districts.