Isn’t it about time that we ditched a voting system that involves more than 45 million people trudging down to the local polling centre on a wet Thursday afternoon to write a cross on a piece of paper using a pencil attached to a string?

The right to vote is part of our democratic freedom but when you consider that the 2019 European Elections in the UK had a depressingly poor voter turnout of 37% then perhaps the issue is not the candidates but the fact that our antiquated voting system needs a rethink.  This is especially relevant with younger voters who in the last general election in 2017 had a turnout of 44% compared to the older generation who turn out more than 65%. 

While it says a lot about voter apathy, it also speaks volumes about how we need to be driven by technological change.  This figure is even smaller when you start to consider that some seven and a half million people in the UK of voting age  (according to the governments Political and Constitutional Reform Committee – PCRC) are not even registered showing the lack of true Democracy and our electoral process. 

Ten reasons to support our ‘Campaign for Open Democracy’:      

1.         We will no longer need paper ballots

This is the technologically advanced twenty-first century, and the ballot box sadly belongs to another past century.  The time and organisation required to arrange and organise election polling stations take months of detailed preparations and recruitment. This is unnecessary and inefficient compared to the instant results through Smart voting.

2.       Increase electoral participation

We live in a technological world, with over 50 million smartphones alone registered in the UK.  This compares to the 31 million people that voted in the referendum in 2016, which was the highest turnout for the last 70 years.  ‘Smart Voting’ will also increase the percentage of 18-24-year-olds that participated, which fell well below the 34% in the previous General Election.

3.       Voting preferences can be rated

As we have found in the Brexit chaos in recent years, voting either Yes or No doesn’t help politicians in their interpretations of elections or referendums. If people could instead rate the issue of candidate of the election on a scale of 0 to 10, the result would have far more clarity.

4.        Votes can be changed over time

Voting attentions are time-sensitive and hence the need for periodic elections.  With ‘Smart Voting’ such prescriptive intentions can be disregarded to the rubbish bin of history.  For the will of the electorate at any time can be monitored and understood.  Thus allowing changes in government policy to reflect these changes in public opinion.

5.        It will legitimise constitutional vagaries

Our parliamentary system works with what we call an unwritten Constitution where historic protocols are enabled – like the recent propagation of Parliament, which led to a supreme court case and a massive ‘push-back’ and public protests.  Smart-Voting would show if public opinion supported or opposed the government's actions.

6.        MPs will know their electorates preferences

The process of Parliamentary representation is for MPs to act as a conduit for the constituents and therefore represent their views in the house of Commons.  No MPs can currently know the will of their voters due to the size of their constituencies, and so they guess, based on limited meetings within their local party groups and Friday surgeries.

‘Smart Voting’ will enable them to see how their entire consistency requires them to vote — giving full transparency to the process, away from minority party preferences.

7.        Ability to raise and support new issues

Promoting political policies and legislation is a significant business of lobbying groups, who use their enormous financial leverage to influence MP’s and other elected officials.  Smart Voting will disqualify this undemocratic process by allowing ALL citizens to raise issues with elected officials and show transparency in their actions through debate and voting on a public platform.

8.        Ballots can be monitored for fairness

‘Smart Voting’ is unique as it has the ability to legitimise existing ballots and elections, even if it is not officially adopted by governments.  When membership of the ‘Smart Voting’ application has reached ‘critical mass’ it would automatically be seen to verify if elections genuinely reflect the will of the people.

In some countries, which will eventually have access to our platform, we can offer to notify the public of suspected fraud or corruption.

9.        Replaces street protests and rallies

Physical demonstrations and rallies will no longer be necessary to demonstrate the will of the people.  This open democracy will allow us to develop a more tolerant and orderly society – free from strife and intimidation.

10.    Eradicates Political Extremism

Political parties construct manifestos and employ Whips to force elected MPs to vote in ways that may be against the will of the public in those areas.  ‘Smart Voting’ will, therefore, eradicate political extremism by minority groups that hijack the political process causing massive degradation and poverty to so many in the community.

The reality is that we can now do so many things on our smartphones through the internet that something as simple as voting could be added via a phone app or even online PC with a touch screen facility.  It would be straightforward and easy and would at the very least guarantee a higher voter turnout, especially among the disenfranchised, technologically driven younger voters.  Of course, sceptics would say that electoral integrity is paramount and that a system would need to be set up that is bulletproof and secure without the risk of corruption or fraud from hackers. Our proposal will alleviate such objections as the proposed system incorporates the current technology used by the bitcoin industry, which has proven resilient.

Technology moves at an exponential pace so it would seem foolhardy to ignore a shift to a more voter-friendly and accessible electronic system in the delivery of elections.  Voter apathy, especially amongst younger voters and the technological difficulties for the old, will soon become a thing of the past. Consequently, we support the draft recommendation of Parliament’s PCRC on Voter Engagement in the UK, urging for the introduction of online voting by 2020.

We agree that this would be a huge step to making voting significantly more accessible to the masses. However, we also recognise that concerns about electoral fraud and secrecy of the ballot would need to be addressed first so we have produced a website and video to explain how the process will work at:

www.open-democracy.uk