Electronic Voting

When are we going to have electronic voting in this country? Everyone knows that the Yanks bloody well need it - just have a look at the mess that Florida made of the last Presidential election. Could they do that again? Well, while George W's brother is the governor I guess that anything is possible.

One week after the Federal election they are still counting the votes in my local seat of Swan. The incumbent Labor bastard is 8 votes in front of the Liberal candidate on a two-party preferred basis. As I write this there is a report on the radio about several seats still being counted.

The report on the news on Saturday said that once the counting had been completed in Swan there would be a recount. What the hell for? What is so wrong with our system that once the votes have been counted, because it is close, the votes must be counted again? What is that going to prove? Has an election result ever been changed due to a recount? If so, how did the people counting it get it so wrong in the first place?

I imagine that the people counting stack the votes according to how they have been cast therefore the recount would be faster and there is the possibility of greater accuracy, as in this country we have a preferential voting system for the lower house. You have the option of voting for one candidate for the upper house or voting for all 40 candidates and numbering them from one to forty. It was nice to put all of the lunatics and Greens last. (I have split the Greens from the lunatics although there really is no factual basis for this. They are lunatics.)

Perhaps that is why the vote is difficult to get accurate. There are enough morons like me to make the counting so hard.

It's time create an electronic voting/counting system in Australia to save money and provide quicker, more accurate results. At least we don't have to worry about chads.