Electoral systems discussion

Sam Russell

Certainly in my local polling station, the arrangements were very different from normal, and it certainly interfered with my voting.

There were extra booths placed in the centre of the small room which reduced privacy. Plus it was crowded when normally there were few there with a large group of women in burqas who appeared to be students on a sightseeing tour.

The length of the ballot paper also was very difficult to handle given the small size of the shelf used as a working place to mark the ballot. I did not attempt to read down the list of no-hopers merely voting 1,2,3 I had already decided on and left it at that.

Not a satisfactory way to conduct an election.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122450866#Comment_122450866

But only 9% 'strongly agreed' that the length of the ballot paper impacted how they voted ……(23% responded they were 'somewhat impacted' . What does that mean? I was somewhat impacted because I had to read a longer list. But I managed to do just that )

The problem was worse in Dublin, with the shorter list, than in MNW with the longest list.

The problem was worse in the ABC social class.

Hotblack Desiato

The extra booths were probably a consequence of the ridiculously long ballot paper - people were taking much longer to vote than before.

Not sure what the relevance of burquas is, perhaps you can explain?

For the EU elections in particular, the barrier to entry is ridiculously low. Constituencies with electorates of over a million and only a very small deposit or endorsement from a few dozen voters required. Candidates need to have genuine commitment to the process and skin in the game. It was said at the time that some student union elections were harder to secure a nomination for than the European Parliament elections, which is completely daft.

It appears some were not interested in being elected or campaigning at all but just (ab)using the nomination and election process to get their propaganda piece into hundreds of thousands of homes at extremely low cost. There was one religious nutcase in Dublin in particular whose leaflet, distributed at taxpayer expense, was Virgin Mary this, Fatima that. It occurred to me that he had no interest in actually being elected at all.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122451637#Comment_122451637

We should bring back deposits - they still exist but you don't have to pay them if you get enough signatures; that should be dumped.

I did see at least two council candidates in Kildare went the deposit route (and lost them) as this was specifically mentioned on the results sheets!

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122451637#Comment_122451637

The need for extra booths could only have been anticipated because they were there for the whole day, so were not the result of experience.

The point of the burqas was that the group of about 20 young women were clearly not there to vote and were noticeable because of their dress, being dressed in black from head to toe. There were hanging about aimlessly, like they were waiting to be brought to their table.

The room was not large enough to hold that many people, and their presence was not helpful because it made the room overcrowded. Anyone not there to vote should have been hunted if they were not there to vote.

Now, I just think the whole atmosphere was not satifactory, and should have been controlled better.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122451651#Comment_122451651

I disagree with this - money shouldn't be a barrier to running. But 60 signatures to be nominated when the average quota was 100k is ridiculously low.

Taking my own constituencies, the quota for Ireland South was 114,761. Cork South Central in the last GE was 11,429. Cork City South East in the most recent locals had a quota of 2,238.

The number of signatures you need for locals is 15 (or €100 deposit). The number for general is 30 (or €500). The number for Euros is 60 (or €1,800).

So the local limit is half the Dáil limit (when it's ~1/5 of the size). And the Euro is twice that of the Dáil but it's a constituency that is 10 times bigger.

Everybody who ran for the Euros in South got more than 600 votes, but I wonder how many of them would have managed to get 600 declarations of support in advance?

Hotblack Desiato

No credible campaign can be run without money and the deposit is less (probably much less) than the cost of the "free" leaflet dropped into every home it gets you. That's an abuse of the system and needs to be stopped.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122453725#Comment_122453725

^^ For a European Parliament election in particular.

corkie

If anyone still wanting e-voting?

The nation’s best hackers found vulnerabilities in voting machines — but no time to fix them

Organizers and participants at the DEF CON Voting Village found cyber vulnerabilities in everything from voting machines to e-poll books, but there is no time before the November elections to fully implement their findings.

LAS VEGAS — Some of the best hackers in the world gathered in Las Vegas over the weekend to try to break into voting machines that will be used in this year’s election — all with an eye to helping officials identify and fix vulnerabilities.

The problem? Their findings will likely come too late to make any fixes before Nov. 5.

If the US with the resources they have can't fix the machine's, what hope would Ireland have to do so?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122496684#Comment_122496684

The idea that Ireland would ever agree to eVoting by machine is hopelessly outside the sentiment of the debacle of the last time that was tried. Probably for living memory.

All that is proposed if the e counting be used where the existing ballots would be scanned, verified, and then a certified software system would crunch the data tables to come up with a verifiable result. It would always possible to revert to the coming system.

It could be checked at all stages, and the data tables (anonymised) could be poured over by the various interested departments of any Irish university to come up with startling discoveries of public intentions. Those tables could be the basis of many PhD theses over the time before the next election, and perhaps much longer.