Alex Macfie 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    My point is not that people who publish their votes are necessarily selling them, it is that the OPTION OF PUBLISHING THEIR VOTE SHOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT PEOPLE CAN'T SELL THEIR VOTES. It is not a slippery slope, or if it is, we all fell right down it when the Ballot Act was passed in 1872, with the specific intention of making vote-buying and selling impossible by ensuring that no-one could prove how they voted EVEN IF THEY WANTED TO. The facvt that mobile with cameras now exist making it technically easier to publish one's own vote does not mean that the secret ballot is somehow an old-fashioned concept that has not kept up with the times. It means we have to be extra-vigilant against potential abuses of the voting process using new technology.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:19am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    But the use of camera phones in a voting booth likely means you are about to disseminate information about (by which I mean proof of) how you voted. What else would you be using them for?

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:18am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    We have freedom of speech enshrined under the ECHR. But that is nothing to do with voting secrecy (ECHR also guarantees the right to a secret ballot).

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:15am

    Re: Re: Re:

    No, it is intended to protect the secret ballot, i.e. prevent ANY instances where people show proof of how someone has voted. That includes the voter himself.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:13am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    It is FAR easier to police the tallying process (which is a specific process and happens in specific locations at specific times, involving specific people) than it is to police random instances of voter fraud, which could happen anywhere to anyone and by anyone if the circumstances in which the vote is cast are not controlled and secret.

    So OF COURSE they don't happen behind closed doors.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 05:44am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    But coercion is not the only form of electoral fraud, as it is a crime even willingly to give your vote away to someone else. Regardless of how the fraud is committed, the crime is primarily one against society, which is why voting secrecy needs to be sacrosanct.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 05:41am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    The truth is that there are already laws on the books to deal with the sorts of crimes that "the secret ballot" pretends to prevent.

    But these crimes typically happen 'behind closed doors', in households or among community groups (often, tho' not exclusively, based on ethnicity); or in situations where the victim is economically dependent on the person who wants to improperly influence their vote. In these situations, the victims are not going to be inclined to complain. In any case, questions of legality alone will not prevent people from doing things they are not supposed to. And how do you settle disputes about election results after the fact, if there has been sufficient voter coercion to change the result? Better to prevent it from happening at all, by ensuring that there is no way the landlord/employer/householder/community leader can ever know whether the voter has voted according to instructions.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 05:31am

    The secret ballot allows people to vote according to their consciences without consequences.

    This is absolute rubbish. You can SEE the votes being sorted, counted and piled up. All candidates have their own counting agents who observe the count, and would report any irregularity in counting (their own votes going onto someone else's pile). If this happens systematically, then it can be investigated by the police.
    In the UK, the secret ballot was introduced by the Ballot Act of 1872; before that it was commonplace for employers and landlords to check how their employees and tenants voted. It was one of the Chartist demands (along with universal male suffrage and others) and was opposed by establishment politicians, landowners and some industrialists, because it would remove their influence over the votes of those in their power.
    The secret ballot allows people to vote according to their consciences without consequences.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 02:21am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    No, it is intended to apply to ANY violation of the secret ballot, which is to say any PROOF about how someone, whether oneself or anyone else, has voted. You are the one lawyering by asserting that it could apply to just telling someone how you voted, when that is NOT the intention and is NOT the meaning.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    We don't have electronic counting in this country, so your comment on that is irrelevant. We use pencil and paper, and (in most places) manual counting. So your comments on that are irrelevant. BTW I am implacably opposed to electronic voting/counting, and I hope it never finds its way into this country (it has been trialled and rejected before).
    You haven't a clue about how and why the Secret Ballot was introduced. Before it, voters were coerced by their employers/landlords to ensure that they voted the "right" way; if they didn't, the next day they could find themselves out of a job or off their land. If you had your way, we would be going back to that state of affairs.
    You check for corruption among election workers the same sort of way as you check for corruption anywhere else. this really isn't an issue. And systematic mis-filing of votes is something that ca be identified because the count happens before the eyes of the candidates' observers.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:22pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    The burglary analogy has the same flaw as the rape one: that it is principally a crime against an individual. Yes, there are effects on society as well, but the same can be said for rape, and these are indirect effects, as opposed to the direct effect on the actual victims.
    Once again, stolen votes do NOT primarily victimise the people whose votes are stolen, but the VOTING PROCESS ITSELF. It is NOT primarily a crime against an individual. If we decide that the right to keep a vote secret is simply a private matter of individual choice, then the case for banning vote trading among consenting parties disappears completely: why should I, as a voter, be prevented from voluntarily entering into an agreement with someone else where I am paid some money to vote for that person's preferred candidate, and to prove that I have delivered send them my completed ballot paper? After all, it's my vote and I can do what I want with it, isn't it?
    Well no it isn't. Not in that sense. Using someone else's vote is no less a crime if the person agrees to their vote being used. And the person who agrees to it is also committing a crime. This is because everyone loses when some people are using other people's votes: the principal direct victim is the secret ballot, the voting process.

    "Information" about how someone has voted DOES involve proof. Telling someone how I voted is NOT giving them "information", because I COULD BE LYING. It is only information if it INFORMS. This means actual EVIDENCE, not just someone's word.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:58am

    Re: Re: Re: Nope

    Assuming some hard-ass cop wants to try it on, I very much doubt any CPS lawyer would try it.

    I think the clarification that the law does apply to sending photos of ballot papers is intended to ensure that polling stewards intervene to prevent this happening before the crime has occurred. So it is unlikely to even get to a CPS lawyer's desk because it would have been prevented before it happened. Only someone who stubbornly insisted on photographing their ballot paper, and not taking a fresh one from the steward, could possibly be prosecuted.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:41am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    But according to the law, sharing of the proof of one's vote is the crime whether it is done publicly or "discreetly". So yours is a non-point.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:38am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    This report is not about actual prosecutions, but about the threat of prosecution. No prosecutions have actually happened, and they probably would not, since the possibility of prosecution for photographing a completed ballot paper would lead to polling stewards ensuring that people who appear to be photographing their ballot papers are prevented from doing so (or have their ballot papers reissued).

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:26am

    Re: Re: Re:

    The problem with this, as in many other similar situations, is the difficulty of obtaining such evidence. Victims of coercion of this kind are unlikely to complain, because the complaint itself is likely to result in victimisation by the employer, and because the theft of the person's vote is unlikely to matter to them as much as their livelihood.
    And anyway the principal crime is against the voting process, not against the individual whose vote is stolen. It is a crime to voluntarily sell a vote as well. When proof is provided of how someone has voted, a crime has been committed, regardless of the circumstances. This means that it is necessary to prevent, as far as possible, all occurrences of such cases.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:19am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Voting is a societal act, not an individual one

    When someone provides proof of how they or anyone else voted, the violation of the secret ballot IS the crime. Not a hypothetical or potential crime, but an ACTUAL crime. I don't know whether you are the same as any of the other ACs posting along the same lines as your post, but it is clear that you do not understand that secret voting is not a private right, that individuals can choose to waive if they so wish, but a public right, to ensure the integrity of the voting process.
    On a practical level, ensuring that people cannot bring mobile phones into the voting booth, along with the threat of punishment against those who do photograph their completed ballot paper, is effective as a way of preventing voter coercion involving requirement to email/tweet pictures of completed ballot papers. It is in the interests of the voting stewards to ensure that such crimes are not committed in the voting booth, and they should watch the behaviour of voters and intervene when a voter appears to be photographing a ballot paper. This need not mean prosecution: the steward could just tear up the photographed ballot paper, issue a new one and ask the voter to delete the photograph. In this case it is unlikely that any prosecutions will occur simply because the crime will have been prevented.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 11:02am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    technically simply telling someone how you voted would be in violation of that statute as it is written

    NO IT IS NOT. In fact your last sentence contradicts what you wrote before. I can tell someone how I voted, but I could be lying. It is NOT USEFUL as information about how I voted. PROOF of how I voted is information.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 26 May, 2014 @ 10:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    Your analogy with provocative clothing and rape will not do. Rape is inherently a crime against an individual. Stealing votes or impeding people from voting is not just a crime against the individual, it is a crime against the secret ballot. As I stated elsewhere, the right to vote in secret is not merely a private right (like the right to, say, not be raped regardless of what clothes you are wearing), it is a PUBLIC right, that is given to people in order that they can fulfill a societal duty. Therefore, compulsion in voting secrecy is not some nannyish measure to victimise individuals who publicise their voting habits, it is a measure to ensure the integrity of the voting process itself.

    "If votes are secret, by your definition, then merely telling someone, how you voted would have to be a crime."

    No, of course it wouldn't. Only PROVING to someone else how you voted has to be a crime. If I just tell someone else how I voted, there is no way of knowing whether I am telling the truth. I could tell me wife that I voted Labour, my workmates that I voted Conservative and my parents that I voted UKIP, if I so wished. No more than one of these could possibly be true (maybe none are and I voted Lib Dem). The ability to prove how you voted is what violates the secret ballot, and it is what matters for coercion or bribery.

    Sharing how someone else voted without their consent would be an altogether different matter.

    No, it's the same thing. It would be a crime if I were able to prove how they voted. But if I merely told my mate John that my friend Jane had voted Labour, that is not a crime because I have no idea whether it is actually true or not. She might not be very pleased with me, but that's just a matter of social etiquette.

    a very small percentage of people that go against that is not likely to have much if any affect on the outcome anyway

    That depends on the closeness of the result. In a closely fought election, a few dozen stolen votes may determine the outcome of the election. There is no number of stolen votes that is acceptable in an election. We have to keep it to the smallest possible number, and that means closely monitoring the secrecy of the ballot, and yes, punishing violators.

    Photography absolutely is speech

    I never said it wasn't, and this is irrelevant to the question. The point is that some abrogation of freedom of speech (by disallowing dissemination of proof of how someone, including oneself, has voted) is necessary in order to maintain the secrecy of the ballot, as it is in certain other circumstances.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 25 May, 2014 @ 12:16pm

    Re: Re: Voting is a societal act, not an individual one

    Abstention from voting can be taken as saying that you don't mind who is elected.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 25 May, 2014 @ 12:15pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    It's not a leap at all. If a voter refuses to share evidence about how they voted, then the person who is seeking this evidence (the vote buyer) can draw inferences from this: clearly the voter had something to hide! The only way to avoid this is to ensure that proving how you voted is not an option at all.

    There is no possibility of votes being bought if the buyer cannot know if the voter has delivered, because this renders any such transactions worthless.

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