Databases and Digital Democracy

Modernising the voting system

Thursday's General Election highlighted to me just how antiquated and inefficient the voting system is in this country, requiring huge amounts of manpower and paperwork to administer with so much potential for mistakes. It's the 21st century so why are our election results still being determined by people counting marks on pieces of paper? As a computer scientist with a particular interest in databases, this seems an ideal use of such a system to me and having given it some thought, from a technical viewpoint this is actually a very simple problem that can easily be solved with current technology.

An unusual election

No votes for the big three here...

Politics is one of those controversial subjects, along with religion, that I normally refuse to discuss, partly because I have little interest and partly because there are so many strong and opposing views that it invariably ends in an argument. I'm making a rare exception however, having just been through the General Election in a rather unusual constituency: my home town of Buckingham is the seat of John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons. An established convention dictates that the three major parties don't stand against the Speaker, so the complete absence of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem candidates means the people of Buckingham realistically have little influence on the national government and tend to focus more on local issues. This post is therefore written from a purely local and somewhat personal perspective; I am perhaps unusual in having no allegiance to any particular party but I consider each of the local candidates on their own merit as individuals and their ability to serve the community, regardless of their affiliation.