On 3 Jun 2015, at 23:48, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2015 at 18:42, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
By the way, my understanding is that the practice of generating a public list of voters who cast ballots, while keeping the nature of their votes private, is relatively common in election processes in general. In the United States, political parties use this information for their "get out the vote" campaigns so that they know which of their likely supporters
have
yet to vote.
In UK political elections I think that would be illegal...{{citation needed}}
They certainly exist in Canada, and I'm quite certain they exist in the UK
as well, because that's how the official poll watchers (or scrutineers, as we call them in Canada) know who to "get out" when getting out the vote. They don't get published online, but there is a right to examine the list of individuals who can vote at the office of the local senior election official for a few weeks afterward, and then at the national election office once any challenges have been completed. Of course in places where voting is mandatory, the failure to vote is going to be public.
Wow. I'm very far from being an expert on the UK voting system, but my understanding is that although the list of who can vote may be made public (where voters have agreed to this), who has not yet voted (or, after the fact, who has not voted) would never be made public. In the UK, election scrutineers would only be involved in reviewing votes that had been cast, not who had not voted.
Thanks, Mike