Speaker of the House of Commons tells me: “You are a digital equivalent of Che Guevara”
Last night, I was at the House of Commons for a meeting organised by the snappily-named Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (PICTFOR). The title was “Parliament 2.0: How can the Internet revolutionise British democracy?”
The keynote address came from the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow MP who admitted “I am not the most agile user of digital technology”. He explained how the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy is operating. It started in January 2014 and plans to report in January 2015. So far, it has received about 50 submissions and had 10 roundtable discussions.
Ideas which the Commission is considering include electronic voting of MPs and by MPs. I support both ideas.
Some are afraid that electronic voting in elections will be prone to fraud, but current polling arrangements are much more vulnerable to fraud, there are technical safeguards against fraud as there is with e-commerce, and a country like Estonia has shown that it can be done.
The only objection that I have heard to electronic voting by MPs is that current arrangements give them a chance to talk to Ministers while they are passing through the division lobbies, but this marginal ‘benefit’ has to be set against the waste of time when divisions take around a quarter of an hour each and there can be several each evening.
I was the first to put a question to John Bercow and prefaced my remarks by supporting online voting of MPs and by MPs. This led the Speaker to suggest that, compared to many others, I was so cutting-edge in my attitudes that “You are a digital equivalent of Che Guevara” – a comparison that has never previously been made, even when I was in Cuba.
After John Bercow, we had a panel of speakers:
Jaan Priisalu, Director General of the Estonian Information System’s Authority, told us that in the last general election in his country 31% voted electronically. However, he admitted that there was no evidence that e-voting either increases turnout overall or encourages younger electors to vote (the largest group voting electronically is the over 55s who have a larger participation rate in all elections).
Katie Ghose, the Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, argued that people have lost faith in the capacity of politicians to solve their problems. She pointed out that, among those who do vote, there is huge gap in participation by wealth and class with poorer electors even less likely to vote. She called for information on politics to be packaged to reflect that “We are living in a bite-sized world”.
Ruth Fox, Director of the Hansard Society, suggested that we must put the technology in the wider context of growing disillusionment with politics and politicians. The Society’s latest annual survey showed that only 38% said that they wanted to be involved in national decision-making. She pointed out that there is no clear point of leadership on Parliamentary reform and that one useful initiative, the provision of e-petitions, is run by Government but aimed at Parliament.