On 3 Jun 2015, at 23:48, Risker
<risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 3 June 2015 at 18:42, Michael Peel <email(a)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