Today I voted with a flawed system.

Today is the federal election for Canada. I did my duty and voted. However, in doing so I have observed a few flaws with the system. If we don't talk about these flaws, they'll never be resolved. So....

What follows is my own observations and opinion. I fully expect that some of these perceived flaws have been addressed, or there may be a necessary need for them, being the lesser of two evils sort of thing. Or perhaps my observation/opinion is just wrong.

Flaw #1 - Party government vs Representational government.
Let's imagine for a moment that I liked the platform that the Conservative party was running with. But at the same time, I did not like the Conservative candidate in my region. In this situation, I have no choice but to vote for someone I do not like, just so I can hopefully get the Prime Minister and/or leading party I do like. This is the current party system in action. A direct result of this is that few people actually know the person they are voting for. They may be familiar with the name, but not necessarily what this person stands for, or how they plan to represent their area at the federal level.

My preference here would be that I am voting for a person who has the best interests of their riding area as their focus. Not the best interests of their political party. This is Representational government (my definition of it at least). This system would lead to a little more work needed, and more consultation with other elected officials and the voting public. But that is a Good Thing!

Flaws 2, 3, and 4 - Privacy Issues
Registration. Only "registered" people can vote. Sure, you can register on site if needed, but only those who have given their personal information - name, address, etc. can vote. This means that somewhere, the political machines know who the voters are. This is a tricky area though. I do believe that only citizens of Canada can vote. But I also believe that once citizenship has been established there should be no other need for personal data.

Location. Registered voters can only vote in their designated areas. Residents in my area vote at the local church. A little further along the neighborhood, residents vote at the community center. While we should be using the closest voting location, this should not be so deeply embedded in the system. As it stands, anyone with access to the votes by poll booth/region, has a direct insight into how that micro-area voted. Painting how an area voted is one thing. But due to the designated areas issue, this is easily translated into how specific people voted. But it gets even worse.

Voting Stations. A polling booth sorts the voters to specific desks and vote boxes. For myself, I was directed to a desk. I wasn't on the list for that desk. So I was directed to the registration desk, who found me on THEIR list, and directed me to another desk. Here my name and address was crossed off their list, I voted, and placed my slip of paper into the box at that desk. So a polling booth that handles a few thousand people, then sub-divides those people into smaller sections - sorted by name and address I believe. Now instead of having an anonymous vote in a range of a couple thousand people, my vote is in a box with a mere fraction of those people. The likely hood of determining how I voted has just increased dramatically. This is not anonymous voting. We have just given the leading political parties an way to directly focus on those people who did not vote for them. Or target these radicals with anything from propaganda to police action. This is why we do anonymous voting.

Conclusion
These issues are not simple things to fix. There HAS to be some organization involved to make the votes take place in a reasonable and effective manner. But the system also needs to better protect the privacy of voters and ensure all votes are truly anonymous. I can think of a few ways to make this happen, but I'm sure people smarter than me have considered this problem area. Whether or not those people are in a position to do something about the flawed system is another story though.

I do not have any real beef with the way Canada has been run - ignoring specific scandals such as the Gun Registry and advertising scandal of a few years back. But I do see the slope the current systems are on and have concerns that if corrective action is not taken, then George Orwell's 1984 scenario will become a wished for alternative to ease the invasion of privacy, abuse of process, and power mongering that may be approaching. Ok, that's an extreme view, but in politics, extremism seems to be the norm.

My thoughts - not yours.