So you’ve decided to go to your local town hall or school and cast your vote at this year’s local elections. But do you still think your vote is secret?
Let’s look at the procedure. When you go to vote, you are asked for your voter number. This is written either on a list against the number of the ballot paper you are given or on the counterfoil of the ballot paper and it is written very carefully by the poll clerk – almost good enough to be read by machine … Hold that thought.
These actions create a link between your ballot paper and your voter number, which in turn is linked to the electoral register against your name and address. There is therefore an information chain linking your name to the cross you put on your ballot paper.
If you chose to have a postal ballot, your ballot paper has a number which is duplicated on your postal voting statement, which has your name and address on it and your voter number, making a similar link.
Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, after the election the Returning Officers have to ensure that all ballot papers, counterfoils and the polling clerks’ marked copies of the electoral register are safely deposited with the Clerk of the Crown in The Chancery.
All such documents are supposed to be officially sealed so that there is no chance of interference by any party and, according to the 1983 Act, the seal can only be broken by order of the High Court or Parliament itself. In practice, ballot papers are simply bundled up into paper sacks and transported to a warehouse in Hayes, Middlesex, for the statutory period of one year and one day.
In his book The Freedom Of Information Handbook, David Northmore claims that he has seen sacks of ballot papers splitting in transport and spilling everywhere.
Now, if all those ballot papers, the polling officers’ lists and the electoral rolls were to be fed into a computer, programmed to sort the paperwork into the same order, a master list could be created showing how every person has voted in every election ever held.
And if this is possible – which it clearly is – do you imagine that any government would be able to resist doing so?
In his book, Northmore adds that in 1981 Gordon Winter, a former agent of BOSS, the South African Secret Service, writing in his book, Inside Boss, claimed that the South African government knew the identity of everyone who voted for the Communist Party of Great Britain – thanks to British intelligence using this simple vote-tracing procedure.
What can you do about it? Firstly, you can blot out the ballot paper number on the back of your voting form when you go to vote. This doesn’t negate your vote; the rules don’t say you have to show your ballot paper number to the Returning Officer before you put your voting paper into the ballot box. This action would break the chain between your name and address and the cross on your ballot paper. If you have a postal vote, don’t forget to obliterate your voter number on your postal voting statement – the paper you have to sign and put your date of birth on.
And that postal voting statement also has a bar code on it. You could always add a few more lines in the bar code spaces – that would certainly fool any machine designed to read it.S
An alternative might be to screw up your ballot paper and then smooth it out as best you can before putting it into the box. That would ensure it wouldn’t go through a computer easily. Maybe a clerk would rescue it and put it through manually or maybe they wouldn’t but that certainly would gum up the works.
And of course you could always strike through your ballot paper and write: ‘NONE OF THE ABOVE’ on it.
Another possibility is that you simply don’t vote, asking yourself: “Is it worth it?”
Perhaps you think it doesn’t matter if the powers that be know how you vote. Maybe you don’t care, or maybe you can’t even be bothered to vote. But if you do vote in a polling booth, thinking your effort is private, think again.
Thank you Debbie. My postal vote thingy has not arrived in time for my ‘carer’ to post it for me. So I have to chase that up. I had realised that there was no longer any secrecy about who voted for what but did not realise just how bad it was. However, rather than lose my vote just because I am past my use by date, I decided to vote N.O.T.A. and let T.P.T.B know that I am a dissenter – a rebel!
Very interesting Debbie. Have made a mental note for future reference.
Many yrs ago, my wife and I voted for different parties. At the following election, my wife and I were preparing to vote after work, when a fellow knocked on the door. I’m looking for a Mrs Biscotte to take her to the polling station (not me) should she need a lift (yes, all above board). We declined but my antennae went up! Why only the spousal unit? Same party she previously voted for, but not me. Discussed this strangeness concluding such an event could only be put down to knowing the previous election votings. I took a keen interest at the polling place. Yes, we all have a number on the register. Yes, we fill in a voting form that has a number on it. The polling people made notes of the ballot numbers alongside the register names. I am certain this is where the party ‘trick’ of whom to escort to the polling station next time. Match up the results and you knew who voted what.
I wrote to the polling officer who fobbed off the comment adding something about destroyed after 12 months (of long analysis?). No – ‘we dont do that’. In my book, no good explanation, plus no denial equals wont confirm the truth.
Sound advice. Thank you