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I work in public digitisation in Denmark where we do digital elections. We’ve digitised voter registration, not the actual voting part. That bit is still done w
by jaabe 8y ago
I work in public digitisation in Denmark where we do digital elections. We’ve digitised voter registration, not the actual voting part. That bit is still done with paper, and will continue to be that way for a long time.
Basically every adult Dane is mailed a vote-card that you can trade in for a ballot at your local voting place each election. Traditionally you took this paper and got crossed off in a big book, something which created hour long queues at prime times. So we added a bar code to your vote-card, and now we scan it when you arrive.
The interesting bit about this though, is that it’s way more expensive to do things this way because public IT-systems are just damn expensive. Which leads me to your point on “why would you do it”, and I agree, it just doesn’t make sense to digitise elections.
It doesn’t really make them easier to handle. We have to train people on how to setup and use the system, each time. We also have to set up the equipment and the backup equipment. Basically we spend a few thousand hours extra in preparation for each election, so not only is the software/hardware expensive, we actually use more man hours. You could reduce some of that by digitising the vote counting of course, but when we did the math it wouldn’t save us more than we spend.
So there is no financial reason to digitise elections.
We knew this when we decided to digitise part of our election btw, but because we’re the public sector and not a business, well, financial reasons aren’t the only reason we operate. Citizen satisfaction is a major one, and that’s exactly what we get by lowering the queues from a few hours to 10 minutes max.
But what is there to gain by digitising the counting? Getting results at 8pm instead of later during the night? Maybe if it was risk free, but since digital elections are the opposite, there is just no reason.
I guess if you let people vote online like Estonia, but we wouldn’t consider that to be a democratic process.
- kome 8y agoI had a similar experience. My first job was to study the deployment of electronic ballot box in a region in northern Italy. It's such a problematic process on many levels, and it's incredible how many things can go wrong. Things you cannot even imagine: like finger traces on the touch screen. We just observed an increase of risks, without an increase in benefits. For extra safety, our machine produced a paper trace to every vote as well, but it's just not worth it... Paper and pencils are still the best technology for elections. And ofc voting at home, by mail or electronically, like in Switzerland or Estonia, is not democratic enough for me. To make it democratic, you have to be alone in a safe space with maximum privacy: a ballot box. You should not be pressured by family or anyone. I know for sure that in Switzerland (I lived there), in many households, ballot box of the wife are often ticked by the man, and that's nonsense.
- mgoetzke 8y agoAs for Switzerland. Swiss women can only vote since 1971 (I was quite shocked learning that). Also see https://www.newlyswissed.com/die-gottliche-ordnung-film-review/ https://www.newlyswissed.com/die-gottliche-ordnung-film-revi...
- kome 8y agoIn one small canton (Appenzell Innerrhoden) it was just in 1991 :)
- CaptainZapp 8y agoAnd they only stopped beccause the supreme court strongly advised them to. Advised as in stomped in hard with both boots if the canton didn't get its act together, pronto!
- mgoetzke 8y agowow
- mgoetzke 8y agoI dont understand quite why there are such long lines in Denmark. I know about America and why due to historical reasons they vote on Tuesdays, but this is the first I heard about queues in Denmark. Having been to Denmark quite a few times I always though Denmark to be better organized than Germany even. Maybe you could give some background as I am genuinely puzzled. For some background. In Germany I voted in big cities, medium cities, tiny villages. Big elections and small. I never ever had to wait more than 5 minutes, I don't actually remember ever having had any experience that equated to 'waiting' as you would in a supermarket queue etc. I made some smalltalk with the election helpers sometimes but that's about it. I also never heard anybody ever mentioning waiting time when voting. Basically voting happens on a Sunday. You get your morning breakfast. You decide to go on a walk with your family either in the morning or afternoon and stroll towards the voting place with your voter registration card and passport. You get the ballot. They strike your name from the list. You vote. You go home. As for electronic voting. As a software developer I say it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever at all. It is already risky to tabulate the final data in software and forward this electronically. It would be better if it was phoned upwards and the written document then signed, sealed and sent afterwards for verification.