General Chat

bob, Votes can be traced by matching the numbered ballot paper to its similarly numbered counterfoil; the numbered counterfoil also bears the voter's registration number from the electoral register which is hand-written by the Polling Clerk when the ballot paper is issued.

Not exactly a secret ballot then, is it?

If you read the BBC's reality check for the Referendum you will see that it is a secret ballot, the distribution of votes is an estimate based on polls done after the vote.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35603388

you're right - it is never a secret ballot - I always have this conversation with the polling clerk every time I vote - what you vote can be discovered

and I am sick to death of "Remain" people saying we who voted to leave are racists - I voted leave and no way am I a racist - I voted leave for many reasons and immigration was not one of them

on BBC this morning there were ex-pats in Spain, Germany and Brussels all coming up with much the same thing

When I went to the polling station and handed in my poll card, they ticked my name off on their list to indicate that I had turned up to vote. ;-)

in the referendum, yes, that was the case, but in all other elections they put an identifying number on your voting card

The reason why results are given by electoral district ( all the way down to the ward ) is that democracy, like law, not only needs to be done but must be seen to be done. It is a feature of undemocratic states that getting disaggregated data for any kind of election / plebiscite is next to impossible.

This November we shall see the US elections. As anybody who knows their chads can tell you the result of the election though binary will be given out right down to each county.

Same thing in Australia where the govt is hanging on by its fingernails and likely to let go. Let none of them be missed, we've got them on our list.

This item explains a lot about the "secrecy" of ballot papers.

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1051,00.html