Voting in the digital age

The UK went to the polls today and the image above (from Bing UK) shows how pretty much all of us voted. Whilst I like the nostalgia of the fact we still vote this way, it did strike me as rather odd that in the digital age not only were we still voting with a pencil but the process was also being tracked with a pencil and a ruler. The chap in my polling station very earnestly struck a line through my name when I went to vote using his sharp 1HB pencil and a 30cm ruler. I felt like I was back at school for a moment!

I’m not underestimating the security and regulation required to run an election and have the results be watertight but c’mon…surely we can do better?

The flipside of this is it’s making Twitter very entertaining tonight as the results and rumours flood the wires on #ge2010

on a minor note, I noticed the Polling Station signs were copyrighted? What’s to copyright? A piece of white paper with Polling Station in big bold letters. very odd.