I voted today!
Now that I'm a Dutch citizen I am eligible to vote in the general elections for the first time!
It's comical how big the voting paper (stembiljet) is, but thankfully I'm old enough to have used paper maps, so I was able to easily re-fold it like a pro.
Photo by 1Veertje (CC-BY-SA 3.0)
I hate this.
People respond to product semantics. Though I applaud the continued use of a paper ballot over electronic voting (for refusing to trade integrity and transparency of the process for convenience) this sort of thing is a subtle form of negligence when there's low voter turnout.
Treating votes like something that should be moved in an armored car is how representative governments can have the same gravitas as self-serving monarchs. This is pennywise and poundfoolish.
Netherland used to use voting machines, but switched back to paper after a hacker campaign "wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" (we don't trust voting computers) proved that it was possible to detect what people voted.
Somehow that proved to be a more powerful argument than claiming that the votes could be manipulated. Voting secrecy is considered extremely important here (which is why I thought you're not allowed to make photos in the voting booth, but that's apparently more nuanced).
@mcv @barcode @notjustbikes and to continue that historical recount. It was only three weeks before elections in 2006. The ballots could be printed, but where to find ballot boxes? The old ones were gone because the voting computer was the future.
They found these bins in use by big organisations for destroying confidential documents. When full these would be picked up by a specialised company for archive destruction.
Ready to use for ballots too! Cheap, practical, mass produced...
Not Just Bikes π³π±
AnκΓ³in Γ B.
Martijn Vos
ReindeR Rustema