[LINK] Electronic Voting

[Chris Maltby]

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 04:20:02PM +1100, Stewart Fist wrote:
> If they want to opt out of not voting for some candidates, but voting for
> others, they don't need to number the whole paper.  Then, at a certain point
> in the preference distribution process, if they exhaust their preferences,
> their votes won't be counted.

Except in federal elections where this is an informal vote. And with the
change in the electoral law to counter the Langer vote, it's also informal
if you number 1,2,3,3,3,3 or equivalent.

> I find that totally acceptable.

I think that people get too hung-up about preferences - when it comes
down to it, even if the remaining candidates are totally noxious from
my point of view I can still choose my particular preferred poison.

> In fact, I think the whole system would be improved by having at the top of
> the list of candidates, a pseudo-candidate:
> 
> 1.    I choose not to vote [ ]
> 
> Which would demonstrate once and for all that there is no such thing in
> Australia as compulsory voting, and at the same time catch the donkey votes
> which can sometimes tip the balance unfairly to one or the other candidate.

You might want to call it something like "no more candidates" or
"have another election" so that it's more obvious what happens if
the pseudo-candidate gets "elected".

Chris