For the UK contingent

[Warrigal]

Is this for real?

Murdoch To Be In Charge of E-voting From 2020

May 22, 2015 by Oscar de Boer in Britain
http://news.bfnn.co.uk/murdoch-to-be-in-charge-of-e-voting-from-2020/

Rupert Murdoch’s business empire is due to design, build and run the software for digital voting at the next election.


Rupert Murdoch’s British telecommunications company Sky UK Limited is apparently holding secret talks with the newly elected Conservative Party about plans to fully digitise the UK voting process in time for the 2020 General Election.Our source describes the discussions as “well advanced”.

Twelve million current SKY customers – around a fifth of the population – would automatically receive the “already finished” skyVOTE app downloaded to their phones, TVs, and other devices. Non-Sky customers would be encouraged to download the free app to allow them to vote – in what is described as “a cutting edge, state of the art voting system for a modern democracy”.

Lord Ashcroft’s internet-based market research firm YouGov has apparently also submitted a proposal to offer app-based voting facilities for the government, but our source believes Sky’s formidable infrastructure and customer base is the preferred option.

Incentives to vote using skyVOTE will include discounts on Sky products and services. Savings to the taxpayer are said to be “very large”, almost halving the current cost of £125m for administration of the 2015 General Election. Benefits are said to include:

1. Quicker counting
2. Increased security (the entire voting system will be housed on Sky’s impressive internal hardware infrastructure
3. Increased voter turnout (no more voting in person, no more postal votes).

The proposals – whilst sweeping and revolutionary – appear to have the backing of all parties and must be greenlit before Christmas 2015 to have a chance of being legally implemented in line with Parliamentary procedure for the 2020 General Election.

– Vyvyan Lutyan reporting.

Apart from anything else, voting just for a party without any candidates name?
As for putting the Arch Hacker in charge? :wtf:

 

[Warrigal]

OK I've just looked at some other articles on that site.

It's a joke, right?

 

[hollydolly]

LOL.. I wouldn't put it past Murdoch to attempt that kind of crap, but I think we can be assured that will never happen...

 

[Ameriscot]

LOL! The default would always be the Tory party! We no longer get Sky TV because Murdoch gets the profits. I've noticed the quality of the articles in the Wall Street Journal has gone downhill since he bought it.

 

[Ameriscot]

We can vote online for certain things - I'll be voting online when we have the vote for the new Labour Party leader because I am still a member of the Labour Party. But we get the ballot in the post and it gives you your own code to use online to submit your vote.

 

[Warrigal]

We still have paper and pencil voting but there's talk of modernising. From now on we can use a pen :lol:

 

[Ameriscot]

We vote by post and anyone has that option if you register for postal vote. Or you can to the polls.

 

[Warrigal]

We do have postal votes too, and pre-poll voting for people who are going to be too busy on voting day. We can vote absentee out of our electorate too. Everything is done to allow people to cast their votes because it is compulsory. Even so, the general method - paper and pencil - has not changed in my lifetime. But it works well.

 

[Ameriscot]

I vote absentee ballot for the US presidential elections.

We did have an issue when Scotland had the independence referendum last year. We weren't going to be back in time to mail in our ballots, and the ballots would have arrived while we were gone. So we had to de-register as postal and go to the polls which was the day after we returned from our trip. Then after the vote we registered again as postal voters.