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kaberettThe context is, naturally, Brexit; and equally naturally, that Leave supporters started telling each other that they should take pens along to polling stations, cast their votes in ink, and then leave the pen behind To Be Helpful. In case, I suppose, of some spectre of people rubbing out their marks and replacing them with something else. (For those of you unfamiliar with how the UK does this, you cast votes using a terribly quaint system of applying pencil to paper and sticking it in a box.)
Reproducing here for posterity and (well, there's a chance) interest. (Original.)
Just so we are clear: during the process of a count, the only people allowed to touch the ballot papers are people employed by the council for the specific purpose. There will be observers from every party that can possibly provide them standing around each count table, who are *not even permitted to touch the table* let *alone* the ballot papers, watching like hawks from the moment the ballot box is opened to the moment the final result is announced. (They will probably be keeping a running tally of the outcome of each ballot box, for statistical purposes.)
It's been a while since I was last an election observer, but: the boxes are emptied. Every single vote is unfolded, and as they're unfolded (if necessary) they're stacked in baskets of unfolded papers (still on the table). At this stage, the observers make sure that the ballot box is emptied, that no votes leave the table, and that every vote is unfolded; they also make sure that (during the preliminary sort) each ballot paper is sorted, individually, into the correct basket - if any observer believes two papers to be stuck together they can halt the process by querying and requiring the counter to demonstrate that only one paper has been added to any basket, and that it's been added to the correct basket. Any ballot papers where there is the slightest hint of ambiguity about what was meant will get reported to the presiding officer, who will (in consultation as appropriate) decide where it should go.
Once the preliminary sort has been concluded, votes will be counted from the stacks into bundles of (usually) 25 or so ballot papers. Again, observers will make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN (a) that every ballot paper is correctly sorted with respect to the vote cast, and (b) that each bundle contains exactly 25 (or whatever) votes: again, observers can halt the process and ask that things be double-checked or recounted at any stage.
There are typically 4-5 party-political observers, even for local elections in wards people don't care about very much, in addition to the people actually handling the ballot papers.
The idea that these people, of wildly varying political ideologies, who all care enough about democracy to dedicate usually very late nights and very early mornings and very long days, are somehow going to come together to form a cross-party conspiracy to fraudulently alter votes is viscerally horrifying to me, and is also *completely implausible*, even before you add in the actual employees charged with handling the papers and the independent observers who will also be present.
The count tables literally don't have any marking devices on them. Observers will have tally sheets and pens, but again, they're not allowed to even touch the TABLE, let alone a ballot paper, and anyone suspected of trying to take down e.g. the serial number from the back of the ballot paper will be abruptly and unceremoniously ejected from the count hall.
You *really* don't need to vote in ink rather than pencil. It would be *far* easier and *far* more possible to just quietly make "undesirable" ballot papers disappear, but even *that* would require a degree of sleight of hand that is just not, under the circumstances, even remotely plausible: see above.
Just. Wow. Wow. I know education about politics is woefully lacking, I know that working local and general and European elections as a party-political observer in my teens was deeply atypical, but dear GOODNESS is this stuff kind of desperately relevant to the utter nonsense being circulated today.
Followed by a string of comments:
... followed a little while later, by request, by:
Yes, I typed the majority of that out one-handed on the auxiliary internet device's touchscreen, because typing still hurts. It is important and I had a feelings.
Reproducing here for posterity and (well, there's a chance) interest. (Original.)
Just so we are clear: during the process of a count, the only people allowed to touch the ballot papers are people employed by the council for the specific purpose. There will be observers from every party that can possibly provide them standing around each count table, who are *not even permitted to touch the table* let *alone* the ballot papers, watching like hawks from the moment the ballot box is opened to the moment the final result is announced. (They will probably be keeping a running tally of the outcome of each ballot box, for statistical purposes.)
It's been a while since I was last an election observer, but: the boxes are emptied. Every single vote is unfolded, and as they're unfolded (if necessary) they're stacked in baskets of unfolded papers (still on the table). At this stage, the observers make sure that the ballot box is emptied, that no votes leave the table, and that every vote is unfolded; they also make sure that (during the preliminary sort) each ballot paper is sorted, individually, into the correct basket - if any observer believes two papers to be stuck together they can halt the process by querying and requiring the counter to demonstrate that only one paper has been added to any basket, and that it's been added to the correct basket. Any ballot papers where there is the slightest hint of ambiguity about what was meant will get reported to the presiding officer, who will (in consultation as appropriate) decide where it should go.
Once the preliminary sort has been concluded, votes will be counted from the stacks into bundles of (usually) 25 or so ballot papers. Again, observers will make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN (a) that every ballot paper is correctly sorted with respect to the vote cast, and (b) that each bundle contains exactly 25 (or whatever) votes: again, observers can halt the process and ask that things be double-checked or recounted at any stage.
There are typically 4-5 party-political observers, even for local elections in wards people don't care about very much, in addition to the people actually handling the ballot papers.
The idea that these people, of wildly varying political ideologies, who all care enough about democracy to dedicate usually very late nights and very early mornings and very long days, are somehow going to come together to form a cross-party conspiracy to fraudulently alter votes is viscerally horrifying to me, and is also *completely implausible*, even before you add in the actual employees charged with handling the papers and the independent observers who will also be present.
The count tables literally don't have any marking devices on them. Observers will have tally sheets and pens, but again, they're not allowed to even touch the TABLE, let alone a ballot paper, and anyone suspected of trying to take down e.g. the serial number from the back of the ballot paper will be abruptly and unceremoniously ejected from the count hall.
You *really* don't need to vote in ink rather than pencil. It would be *far* easier and *far* more possible to just quietly make "undesirable" ballot papers disappear, but even *that* would require a degree of sleight of hand that is just not, under the circumstances, even remotely plausible: see above.
Just. Wow. Wow. I know education about politics is woefully lacking, I know that working local and general and European elections as a party-political observer in my teens was deeply atypical, but dear GOODNESS is this stuff kind of desperately relevant to the utter nonsense being circulated today.
Followed by a string of comments:
> gosh I am angry about this.
> because, don't get me wrong, electoral fraud is a very big
> deal and needs to be taken incredibly seriously: this is a
> mealy-mouthed understatement because you'd pretty much all
> just back away looking quietly concerned if I tried to
> actually put into words how I feel about this.
>
> BUT. precisely BECAUSE of that, it is absolutely
> unequivocally necessary to understand HOW electoral fraud
> might occur, and how to prevent it, and this? this is NOT IT.
>> (I am about as intense and prone to cry over how
>> Important this is as I am on the topic of life boats.
>> If you've never seen me go from 0 to waterworks in under
>> five seconds when the RNLI comes up, try it sometime, you
>> might be amused.)
> p.s. the Organisation for Spreading Confusion in Europe
> (http://www.osce.org/, not their actual name) has not deemed
> it necessary to provide international observers for this one,
> so we're basically FINE in terms of the degree to which we
> actually need to worry about electoral fraud.
> Oh right I forgot to say: the preliminary tallies made by
> political observers serve as an additional check on the final
> result. Any major discrepancies WILL be queried by observers
> present and WILL trigger a recount, in which the whole
> process will be carried out again... even MORE slowly and
> carefully.
>
> (This was actually what happened in Cambridge in 2010: Julian
> had obviously and unambiguously won, but everyone was so
> astonished that the Conservatives had beaten Labour for
> second place by a margin of a few hundred votes, if I recall
> correctly, that a recount was held just to make CERTAIN that
> second and third place had come out the right way around even
> though it made no difference at all to the outcome.)
... followed a little while later, by request, by:
HOW TO SPOIL YOUR BALLOT, BY ALEX
Thing the first: the ballot is, and this is key, *secret*. If it is possible to identify who filled out a particular ballot paper just by looking at that ballot paper, it is spoiled regardless of how clear you have otherwise made your preference. Signatures count; initials count; writing essays about politics can also count. (There's one particular voter who *always* writes a very specific rant on their ballot, where I've worked elections, to the point that if you're observing and you don't see their vote go past you'll actually check in with folk who were canvassing the relevant area and will therefore know if the voter in question is okay. The voter never writes their name, but the specific political rant is unambiguously identifiably them, not least because they have handwritten posters with the same rant on up in their windows year-round.) Your vote will be included in turnout statistics, and will be counted as a spoilt ballot.
Thing the second: the instructions tell you (usually!) to mark a single cross in the box by your preferred candidate.
The absolute beauty of our incredibly low-tech pencil-and-paper ballot system, though, is that *provided* you have not rendered yourself identifiable on your ballot paper and *provided* you have done something that might plausibly indicate a preference, people -- the presiding officer and various party representatives -- will do their absolute good-faith best to make sure that your preference is respected and appropriately recorded. Absolute discretion rests with the presiding officer; however, if all party representatives agree that a clear preference is indicated, the vote will almost certainly be counted regardless of *how* that preference is indicated.
If you make a mark on the paper, that is unambiguously by a single candidate's name and is not e.g. actually crossing out the name and party/writing "fuck this candidate in particular"/etc, this will be treated as a clearly-indicated preference. (If you cross out the name and party of one candidate but clearly indicate a preference for another candidate, your vote will be counted for that candidate.)
If you draw a smiley face (:-)) in one box and sad faces (:-() in the others, the smiley face will very likely be counted as a clearly-indicated preference (this is one I've actually seen queried and approved).
If you write in numbers in the style of Proportional Representation, even in a First Past The Post system, the candidate next to whom you wrote "1" will generally be treated as your clearly-indicated preference, and your vote will be added to their total.
Thing the third: if you indicate no clear preference -- for example, you make more than one equivalent mark, such as two crosses by two candidates; or you write "NONE OF THEM" across the ballot; or you leave the ballot paper entirely unmarked; or you make any mark that is not clearly indicating a preference for a specific candidate -- then, again, your vote will be counted in the turnout statistics, and recorded as a spoilt ballot.
THIS HAS BEEN THE ELECTORAL PROCESSES WITH ALEX SHOW
Yes, I typed the majority of that out one-handed on the auxiliary internet device's touchscreen, because typing still hurts. It is important and I had a feelings.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-23 11:15 pm (UTC)Rest your hands maybe? :)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-24 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-24 08:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 05:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-23 11:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-23 11:24 pm (UTC)Clearly, this icon would be an identifying mark, but most appropriate thing I have...
Date: 2016-06-24 12:28 am (UTC)So (and I'm going to explain the process for people who don't know how things are done over here), when you turn up to the polling station, your name and address is looked up on a list (and this is a numbered list), to see if you're voting here, or somewhere else, or not registered, etc... and the person doing this will then give that number to another person, who writes this number down in a long table of ballot paper serial numbers, before handing you that same ballot paper (and on the odd occasion that they screw this part up, they will mark it as spoilt very clearly; I saw this happen last month during the local elections). You then take your ballot paper (or papers; Bristol had 3 last month) over to the booth, X the box (or boxes, as appropriate), fold, drop it in the black box, "never to be seen again".
But... my question is this: If the entire point is that my vote is anonymous, then why is a number that identifies me placed in a one-to-one lookup table with a number that identifies my vote? Surely that defeats the point of anonymity.
Re: Clearly, this icon would be an identifying mark, but most appropriate thing I have...
Date: 2016-06-24 06:18 am (UTC)Re: Clearly, this icon would be an identifying mark, but most appropriate thing I have...
Date: 2016-06-24 08:54 am (UTC)These lists are one of the most secretest things ever. They are securely kept for a year, only looked at if necessary to investigate fraud, and then destroyed.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-24 01:23 am (UTC)1) Congratulations for going above and beyond the point of 'I really shouldn't be typing right now'
2) Now stop it! ;)
3) I was taking the piss out of #UsePens on twitter and someone replied "But the Tories are under investigation for electoral fraud". Overlooking the entire difference between electoral fraud and vote rigging, who the hell does he think are running Vote Leave?
4) If you have sufficient access to erase a ballot, you have sufficient access to replace it with a new one. #usepens fails Occam's Razor (like most conspiracy theories).
5) David Baddiel had the best response I saw: "#Usepens clearly shows some people aren't using enough rubbers" (though I'm fairly appalled at myself for liking it on nature vs nurture terms).
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 11:02 am (UTC)*snigger*
I rather enjoyed the suggested escalations, e.g. the picture of somebody carving their vote in stone with a chisel because ink wasn't safe :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 05:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-27 04:54 pm (UTC)