Could E-Voting Cure Voter Apathy?

Bendebecker notes that The Register is saying that "A major trial is about to kick off in the UK that could help decide whether e-voting is merely a gimmick or whether it can genuinely help cure voter apathy." Voter Apathy or Flash Poll Elections? What is the lesser of 2 evils?

Comments

Re:In a word, no!

[mz001b]

A significant proportion of the country doesn't vote because they have little or no faith in politicians and their constant lies, double standards, corruption and inability to keep promises. Sure, clicking a button will make it easier to vote but you're stilling voting for the same distrustful candidates.

That is why we need a "None of the above" choice on the ballot too. California tried this via referendum, but it didn't go through.

Suggestion: allow saying NO.

[TheLink]

Right now, most voting systems only allow you to say "yes".

From anecdotal evidence there seems to be a significant number of eligible voters who can't bring themselves to say "yes" to any candidate. They don't feel like taking the trouble to go to a voting booth to say "yes" to the least disliked candidate, or going there and making a spoilt vote as a sign of their displeasure.

I suggest that if voters could place a negative vote there would be less apathy.

For example a "No" vote would subtract the total vote tally = -1 . "Don't care" = 0. "Yes" = +1. A net-unpopular candidate will have a negative score. If all candidates are in the negative, then maybe the least negative scored candidate should still win, but have a much shorter term (and not be able to credibly brag about having support of the majority :) ).

Would you feel like voting then?

You also get better information. A controversial candidate will have lots of Yes and No votes. You'd be able to have a clearer view of voter disatisfaction.

But I'm sure politicians don't want this sort of thing, and so this is unlikely to happen.

Oh well.

Re:An awful lot of "squelch the masses" replies...

[Guppy06]

Let me put it this way:

1. Voters are apathetic.
2. Apathetic voters vote in a truly random fashion.
3. E-voting (ignoring all the inherent problems of such a scheme) will only really draw new apathetic voters.
4. With truly random apathetic votes, they will not have any real effect on the election results.
5. Implementing e-voting is not cheap.

I'm against e-voting because I don't see the point in spending money to change absolutely nothing.

Of course, I'm also against the concept because it introduces unnecesary complecations into the voting process where problems can occur (why do you need Twenty-First Century technology to do something that Nineteenth Century technology can do just as well with less room for error?), but that's another subject.