[Magdalen] speech

[Roger Stokes]

On 08/09/2018 22:10, Michael Bishop wrote:
> What complicated ways! We Brits are happy to simply collect a voting 
> slip from the poll clerk and then go into the polling booth and mark 
> an X in pencil by our chosen candidate's name, then fold it and go 
> back to the clerk and place the slip in the ballot box. At tghe end of 
> the voting, the boxes are brought together and the votes counted by 
> hand. No machines to go wrong! Why reinvent the wheel?

In some cases it's a little more complicated. Next May I will have to 
mark a first and a second preference for Mayor (we have an elected 
executive Mayor here) and on a separate paper two crosses for my two 
choices for councillor. Some areas have a (civil) Parish Council. If 
there are more candidates than vacancies, which does happen in some 
areas, then the electors have as many votes as there are places up for 
election. The principle, though, is the same - a simple paper-based 
system. I understand that in some US states there is no paper trail as a 
final reference. That could be important if there's an electrical or 
electronic issue or the machines (and it has been alleged that this 
could happen) fail to record all the votes. The firms that produce the 
machines and the software are more likely to support one party than the 
other.

Roger