Civic duty

Did part of my civic duty yesterday helping to create a satisfying and decisive 'No Overall Control' Merton council.

Civic duty... that's an interesting one. I note that, as with every election, some think tank or other comes up with the compulsory voting argument. Never in my lifetime can I remember a government containing so many people in favour of it though... but then we seem to be on a slippery slope as far as civil liberties are concerned.

I don't doubt that near 100% turnout would squeeze out the factions that currently manage to do a better job of squeezing out their voters than the mainstream parties, the BNP for example. The idea of a compulsion to vote in a democracy seems to smack of the same core intellectual failure as positive discrimination. Both may be based on good intentions and yield good short term results but at their heart they're oxymorons - trying to compensate for an underlying fault whether it be prejudice or apathy.

The other thing that struck me this year was the curious archaic polling station. Now before you're tempted to throw up your hands in disgust at the suggestion of using the internet let me say that I probably, still, agree with you. The challenge of creating a secure system with foolproof authentication is not one our public sector could manage given its track record in large IT projects - CSA, NHS, Inland Revenue anyone? Besides it would probably be another excuse for compulsory ID cards with a smart card reader in every PC and don't even get me started on that.

The standards and safeguards we'd expect for an internet based voting option are so high though we probably forget the much lower standards and safeguards we have for other options. Just think back to the postal ballot fraud of the last general election or that today I was only asked for my address, not my name and never challenged to prove my identity at the polling station; it wasn't as though they exactly had a rush on either.