Some of you have referred to the recent postings by John Davies and suggested I may have something to do with them. Well, maybe.

In the last posting by John Davies, he suggested the setting-up of a Metrication Commission which would license shops, newspapers etc. and withdraw their licence to trade if they didn't sell in metric, didn't publish babies' weights in kilos, etc.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Here's an absolutely true story from Cambridgeshire.

The Manager of the Museum at Ramsey has been in charge of it for 38 years and is an excellent and well-respected museum curator.

A few months ago, he was told that under new government regulations, he could no longer run the museum. He apparently did not have a licence to do so. On enquiring how he could get a licence, he was told he would have to go on an approved course and could only get a licence if he passed this course.

Anxious to continue running Ramsey Museum until his retirement, he has had to knuckle under and is at present undergoing the approved course.

If I were advising undecided school-leavers on a career, I'd definitely say: 'Go into government or local authority employment', and I'd add 'Go and be a Licensor'. What a powerful position, deciding who can and can't be allowed to do things

The British government is sure getting intrusive on people's lives now aren't they?

"New Labour"

My God, SteveH voted for the Conservatives...

Not exactly.

I'd have to find out about the person before voting for him/her.

Eg: If it were Theresa May = YES
If it were Ken Clarke = NO

You may blindly vote Labour because "your parents do" or "I've always done" or "they're not the conservatives". I, however, am not politically ignorant. Heck, if Peter Shore were still alive and standing in my area I would vote for him!!

Oops, sorry, you are Conrad thus I will explain:- Peter Shore is Labour.

I am pleased to say that I hold the same view and was considering this matter last week. Too many people say things like 'politicians are all the same', but don't look beyond the party political system which to some extent, as Dr Richard Taylor said, 'overrides the will of the people'.

I think it's always best to look to the candidates first. Thus I would never 'vote Conservative', as I completely disagree with that party's ethos. I would be highly unlikely to ever vote for a Conservative candidate, but it would depend on who the candidate was.

I have always maintained that if I had been eligible to vote in Derbyshire South at the 1997 general election I would have voted for Edwina Currie and give up my chance of being part of throwing the Government out. I would also say that if there were to be a choice between some new Labour candidate like Helen Brinton aka Whatever and John Bercow then I would vote for Bercow on the grounds that he holds the same social views as I do if not the same views on eg hunting and Europe; is a very hard working and dedicated MP; and generally seems like a very nice person. This must surely be more important than party politics.

As for those who say stuff like 'I vote Labour 'cos me dad did', such people are indeed not thinking about it properly but are at least contributing, unlike others.

SteveH: "Oops, sorry, you are Conrad thus I will explain:- Peter Shore is Labour."

I know. I'd never have voted for him if he were still alive because he dedicated himself mainly to keeping Britain as far out of Europe as possible.

The LibDems are more my cup of tea really.

...you surprise me!?

On the subject of voting, big scandal in my home town of Harlow this week.

Harlow has been playing the new Labour tune of encouraging the dubious practice of postal voting, so successfully that 3,279 voters out of the 15,000-odd who voted on 1st May did so by post.

Slight problem - the bureaucrats forgot to stamp the ballot papers with the official mark (the perforations). So, come election night, the Returning Officer - whose incompetent staff made the mistake in the first place - consulted the regulations and - oops! - the law says that any ballot paper without the official mark shall be declared 'void'.

So 3,279 ballot papers went straight in the bin and were not counted. Uproar!

P.S. Last year, together with a group of like-minded colleagues, I found the Ballot Box Society, to campaign for the preservation of the ballot box as the *only* method of voting (except for those too ill or infirm to vote, or those unavoidably absent).

I dare say some on this board will say something like: "There he goes again, stuck in the past with his pathetic little stubby pencil", or words to that effect.

To which I might answer: "Do you recall the decision as to who would be President of the United States being delayed for over a month by the sight of voting counters holding 'chads' up to the light to see if people had pressed their voting buttons hard enough to register a vote?"

Comments on the value of the ballot box as the sole method of voting would be very welcome, please.

The secret ballot box was introduced by Gladstone in 1872 - another British first

I do not personally have a principled problem with postal voting, but it is certainly open to abuse as is any system. What is to stop an individual taking all ballot papers that arrive at a house and completing all of them him/herself?

This could also be applied to a polling station, as no proof of ID is required, but it would be easier to pick up on problems.

My authority now seems firmly on the side of an all-postal ballot, and turnout does indeed seem to be higher than in the past as voters are more easily able to cast their votes. This is to be welcomed. There are clearly potential problems but I think it is appropriate at the moment that the trials should continue.

There are of course other methods, such as the SMS voting experiment which went wrong in St Albans. SMS voting is curious because it seems that one would have to register a handset before being able to use it, thereby defeating much of the advantage arising from the idea.

Tony - I must remind you of a practice of "Vote early vote often" !

Anyhoo - my view is this:
You should be able to vote via:

Ballot Box
Post
Text Msg
Internet
DigiTV

Sorry Tony, we disagree on this one!

(Observer: "Shock Horror")

Steve,

You may remember the programme 'Pop Idols'. There was a close-run tele-poll (I think 15 million voted) in the run-off between the top two and it is widely believed that the 'wrong' person, i.e. the one with fewer votes, won it - because of technical problems on the night. Just think if that happened in a General Election!

*All* electronic methods of voting are subject to errors, great or small, and the votes *cannot be checked* by independent checkers.

Quite apart from the possibility of fraud or other mistakes, as in Harlow, postal ballots encourage the lazy. Those who bother to cast their votes in a ballot box should have the say in who is elected

I still fancy the idea of electronic voting.

Means I could vote from work on the internet through a secure account and then not worry about forgetting to do it when i get home.

Last week it was 8.40pm when i realised I hadn't voted.

What's your views on making it illegal not to vote (like in Oz)?

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What's your views on making it illegal not to vote (like in Oz)?
>>

We have a few logistical problems here. COnsider the following example:

A student's parents are divorced. He spends an equal amoutn of time with each and both enter his name onto the voters role as living at their address. He goes to Univeristy and stays in Hall. The warden also enters his name onto the voters role as living in Hall.

He is now registered three times - nobody having asked him first whether or not he wants to be registered. It would be a criminal offence fo rhis to vote twice. With our present system how do you propose that the law ensures that he votes and that he only votes once.

Your voting registration system is flawed. In the US it is impossible to register to vote in more than one precinct. He should not be registered by the government, it should be his responsibility to register himself. Here in the US it is the citizen's responsibility to register and to get himself/herself to the polls to vote or to send in an absentee ballot.

The problem with forced voting is not the one you proposed, it is that not voting should be as much as a vote as voting is. There are those people who would like to exercise their right to vote by *not* voting. In a free democratic society, not voting should be as much a choice as voting.

If you have a system where voting is forced, it's almost dictatorial to do so. In the US, voting is not manditory and those who do not vote understand that they have handed over their voice to others.

"Your voting registration system is flawed" - I think he was talking about a hypothetical situation in which people in the UK were forced to vote like in Oz.

Only an indivdual can register to vote in the UK, and you have to re-register each time you move. You can only have one address and that is the one you vote with.

BTW Irish people can vote in UK elections but Brits cannot vote in an Irish election - how ****** up is that?

There should certainly not be compulsory voting IMO. It is completely undemocratic.

However, those who avail themselves of the right not to vote should not bleat on about things which they abdicate responsibility over.

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BTW Irish people can vote in UK elections but Brits cannot vote in an Irish election - how ****** up is that?
>>

If this is true Steve, it is one thing we actually agree on! I would like to know what justification is there behind the Irish being able to vote in our elections? Totally corrupt.

Personally I think it would be a good idea to make voting compulsory, provided that the vote paper has a "non of the above" box.

At least that way you have to think about it and actively choose no one rather than doing it by default due to shear laziness.

It should also cause a bit of a fuss when "non of the above" gets more votes than the winning candidate !

You never know, it might make the Politicians buck up their ideas. That could only be a good thing for the democratic process.

re: "Irish people can vote in British elections..."

I believe this is a carry-over from 1923, until which year we were all one country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

When the 26 counties voted to form the Irish Free State and become a Republic, Britain allowed the new Irish citizens living in Britain to carry on voting in British elections. I believe they all had the right to opt for dual nationality.

But the Irish government did not reciprocate so far as British citizens living in the new Irish Free State were concerned

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re: "Irish people can vote in British elections..."
>>

I seem to recall that the Thatcher Government were about to change this anomaly, but the Irish moved first and gave the British the right to vote in Irish national elections.

Under EU law, any EU national has the right to vote in elections in the place whewre they are resident except for national elections. Thus, when I was working in Germany, I had the right to vote in the Frankfurt city elections, even though my apartment in Frankfurt was a "second home" (My principal home being in Britain).

I'm not sure a Brit CAN vote in Eire, you know. My Irish friends still remind me that they can vote in the UK but I can't vote in Eire.

Look at your registration form next time you get one and you can see how weird it is that of all the countries listed, Eire is one of them.

err..

"to be sure"

I have just checked on the Web. The paper on the site

http://epic.at.org/epic/countryResults$IE+ALL?print-friendly=true

tells me that UK citizens are entitled to vote in Irish national elections

Fascinating,

This must be a recent amendment.

Hmmm, so if everyone in the UK is entitled to choose who governs Eire then what was all that fighging about after the turn of the century (last one)?

Cheers for digging that one out

<<
Hmmm, so if everyone in the UK is entitled to choose who governs Eire then what was all that fighging about after the turn of the century (last one)?
>>


Not exactly - you have to actually live there.

Martin

That's actually quite an interesting site that you mention back up there.

Use : http://epic.at.org/epic/

to see lots of countries (I'm chacking out Barbados right now!)