it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time… Winston Churchill

I read this wonderful post from ThreeBallot voting.

I've read it through twice, and I only think I understand how it works.

For all its flaws, First Past The Post is really easy to describe. You can explain how it works in a sentence. "The person with the largest number of votes for them is the winner." I reckon you can do it in two words: "Biggest wins."

Every other form of voting is complicated.

The attacks against paper-based FPTP are simple to understand - and simple to defend against. Here's a 7 page paper from Princeton, and a follow-up 10 pager, discussing some of the subtle and complex attacks against ThreeBallot.

Even if you think ThreeBallot solves some problems, it is undeniable that it is complicated to teach and tricky to defend.

Recently, I was a voter in a ranked-voting election. All of us marked our favourite candidate as "1", the next best as "2", etc. Except for one voter, who thought we were assigning points! They gave a "5" to their favourite candidate and a "1" to the candidate they disliked.

In most democracies, people only engage with a ballot a few times per decade. Any complex skill atrophies unless regularly practised.

Is there a voting system which is simple to understand and robustly democratic?

I'm a member of a board and we recently held an election for new board members. We had 8 spaces and 19 candidates. Candidates wrote a short application and we each ranked them in preference order. My most favoured candidate was ranked 1, the worst candidate was ranked 19.

With multi-member elections, there are seemingly endless ways to tally votes. So we tallied them half-a-dozen ways, to see what effect that would have.

It was... interesting. Here's a lightly redacted screenshot.

The green colour in the top half represents a "top 8" vote. The pink colour in the bottom half represents someone who would have been elected using one of the various proportional representation voting systems.

This is my imperfect recollection of the process - again, lightly redacted - that we went through to pick the winners.

Firstly, anyone who received a complete vertical pink streak was in. Candidates 8, 12, and 19 were duly appointed. Congratulations!

Secondly, anyone who didn't score in the top 8 under any system was out. 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 14, and 17 were thanked for their application and asked to apply again next year.

That left 9 candidates for five seats. What should we do? Pick one counting method and stick to it? Count up the winners of various different systems and weight them accordingly? Run another election which just those candidates? Expand or contract the seats available?

What would you choose?

Remember, this isn't a straight democracy, it is a board deciding who to work with. So we discussed it, like rational adults.

Candidate 10 didn't have a particularly strong showing, but they brought a lot of experience that wasn't found in any of the winners. So they got in.

Number 13 looked great on paper, but we were over-represented by people from their industry. So they went on the reserve list.

Candidate 6 was polarising. Two voters argued passionately for them, but the division was insurmountable and they weren't chosen. So, as a compromise, we took Candidate 18 out of the running as well.

And so on and so forth. With a bit of good natured arguing, and a little horse trading, we came up with a good set of new board members.

Did we make the right call? I'm not sure. This was a slightly strange election - with more candidates than voters - and there was no clean sweep. Every candidate with a pink mark next to their name was good - and I'd happily have worked with any of them. But, sometimes your favoured candidate just isn't compelling to others. And no amount of reasoning will shift their mind.

Democracy is inherently messy. But we muddle through as best we can and hope that both electors and electees are acting in good faith.

I want to examine some of the things I think I'm right about - but secretly worry I'm wrong about. Let's start with a gentle one - online voting.

I truly and fundamentally know that online voting is a terrible idea. Every analysis of online voting code - or even electronic voting machines - have shown them to be laughable insecure.

Voters need to be able to audit their votes. Polls have to be hard to corrupt at scale. Yes, voting should be made more convenient. Yes, disabled voters are badly let down by the current system. Yes, it is expensive to run a nation-wide vote but, no, I don't think online voting would be any cheaper.

And yet... When I chat to the bright-young-things pushing for it, they are utterly sincere.

I remember talking that way back in the late 1990s about the promise of the World Wide Web. I'd explain how online shopping would revolutionise everything - and some old fart would dismiss me. They'd say it was insecure, hard to understand, impossible to guarantee what you were buying, the cost of delivery would wipe out any savings.

So when I talk to voting evangelists, I only have one thought in my head...

WHAT IF I AM THE OLD FART NOW?

I just don't get it, do I? The old-fashioned spectacle of fogeys lining up to scribble on a bit of paper, and then queue up again to count them is just ridiculous. I acknowledge that.

In my head, all the reasons for disliking online voting are sound. But I worry that I'm wrong.

I've written before about the zealots promoting BlockChain Backed Electronic Voting despite its obvious flaws. But they keep coming back, undetterred by reality. Perhaps I need to accept the inevitable?

Is voting too important to A/B test?

The only way we can discover who is right is to run tests. Pick a "minor" election - say West Argleton Town Council - and run a trial of online voting.

Subject it to all the same scrutiny as a major election. Give security experts free-reign to analyse the systems.

Announce success criteria in advance - does it increase participation? How much downtime was there? Were there security issues?

If it works, build it up for a larger election.

If it doesn't, find out what failed and whether that's a showstopper.

Repeat.

I'm not wrong

In my heart, and my head, I think secure and reliable online voting at scale is an impossible problem to solve.

I want to be proved wrong.

I'm what you would probably describe as a natural Labour voter. I'm middle class, the son of teachers, University educated, member and representative of the NUS, I'm employed by a big British company, I'm a proud union member and a home owner.  I even spoke at the TUC before Gordon Brown took the stage.

I probably won't be voting Labour in the next General Election. I say probably, because you still have a chance to win me back.

Allow me to explain.

I was a few months short of being able to vote in the 1997 general election. But I campaigned hard for you; as hard as a 17 year old can.

I was ecstatic when you won. I stayed up all night celebrating.  This was going to be the start of a bright new future. I was looking forward to voting for you as soon as possible.

Then a strange thing happened. You hit me with tuition fees. My family could just about afford it, but it felt like a small betrayal.

You introduced the minimum wage - you set it too low, but that's the compromise of politics. What hurt was keeping it artificially low for younger workers.

There were many other ups and downs - no party is perfect - but I was generally happy.

When it came to the first election, I tried really hard to vote for you - but you wouldn't let me! In every ward and constituency I have ever voted in, you've not either not fielded a candidate or had such a poor showing that I would be wasting my vote.

Your intransigence in sticking to the first past the post voting method caused me to hold my nose & vote for the Liberal Democrats; anything to keep the Tories / UKIP / BNP out.

You've stymied my attempts to vote for you! The outdated method of voting discourages new voters. This needs to be remedied. It may mean you lose some of your power - but that's democracy.

I'll skip over House of Lords reform and a lot of other issues - creationism in schools, corruption, -  all of which I'm passionate about, but they're better addressed by more eloquent bloggers. I'll  concentrate on the three points which now prevent me from voting for you.

The Iraq War

You knowingly lied to us and, in my opinion, allowed this country to become involved in War Crimes. Millions of us marched against this war and you ignored us. Then you had the temerity to say that people were disengaged with the political process! We are not disengaged with you - you have abandoned us!

ID Cards

These are symptomatic of the utter disregard with which you hold our civil liberties. They are a costly boondoggle which have no tangible benefits. Make no mistake, there are thousands of us prepared to stage mass civil disobedience - including imprisonment - to convince you to scrap this illogical and wasteful plan.

Your slavish adherence to The Daily Mail

It seems that you would gladly abandon any principle in order to get a good write-up in the gutter press. Every time they run one of their petty, bullying, coniving "campaigns" you feel the need to cave in to them. You've failed to realise that the mainstream press is rapidly becoming insignificant. Every time you give in to them, you abandon your supporters a little more.

...and breathe...

Now, obviously you're doing something right; you keep winning elections. Albeit with a smaller & smaller share each time.

But you have lost me - a natural Labour voter.  At the European Elections, I'll be voting for the Liberal Democrats.

However, it's not too late! You can still win me back.

• Grow a backbone. Stand up to your detractors. Keep your principles. When the Daily Mail has a pop at you - ignore them.
• You have a mandate from the people; act like it. Let people judge you on your record, not on the lies they read in the press.
• Give us the reforms which you started in 1997.  Make British democracy a shining beacon to the world - not a fusty, dying, inefficient relic.
• Remember that you govern at our pleasure. Keep us free, safe and happy.
• Apologise.  You've done wrong. You know it.  We're smart enough to know the difference between a course correction and a U-turn.

I'm enjoying what I see of the Lib Dems. They have smart policies and relatively uncorrupted MPs.  If you don't start addressing your problems, you'll find more and more of your natural voters abandon you.

I know you can change. Remember, while the polls for you are at rock bottom; things can only get better.

Yours etc...

Does anyone seriously think that e-voting is a good idea?  Ignoring the fact that PRIVATE companies have complete control over the PUBLIC election process and ignoring the usability nightmare and ignoring what happens when there's a power cut, you still have the fact that it wont solve the fundamental problems of voting.

1) Low voter turn out.  I think this could be solved with an improved voting process rather than first past the post and more accountable politicians.

2) That's it.  Seriously.  The UK (paper) elections can be counted in an evening - so speed isn't an issue.  Vote fraud seems to be fairly low.  Vote counting is within acceptable bounds of accuracy.  What else do we need?

Remember - if you want to write to your MP - www.faxyourmp.co.uk

(Imported from my old blog)