Is online voting all its cracked up to be?

The Canadian New Democratic Party elected their leader at the weekend. As it happens they chose a sitting MP, Thomas Mulcair. It's a curiosity that just one year ago Mulcair was the sole NDP MP in Quebec in a generation (and only the second one ever) but now the NDP have most of the seats in Quebec (and Quebec has most of the NDP MPs) and Mulcair's victory is in part because the party needs to retain its position in Quebec. There's a further irony that what began as a western protest party is now led by a Quebecer (although this is not the first time that's happened - see the Social Credit Party of Canada).

But ironies and Canadian specifics aside, the leadership election experienced severe problems with voting. Votes could be cast in three ways:

• Alternative Vote postal ballots, to be sent in advance with preferences chosen without knowing who would get knocked out early & who would endorse who.
• Votes cast at computer terminals at the party convention, with delegates voting for a single candidate in each round with about an hour to vote each time.
• Votes cast online from home, again for single candidates in each round with an hour.

And far from being a smooth process the voting descended into chaos with the website struggling to cope and being allegedly hit by a denial-of-service attack. (The Globe and Mail: Hackers attack NDP, delaying electronic leadership vote) The result was a mess as many people took ages to access the site and cast their vote, others either ran out of time or gave up, voting had to be extended multiple times and even split into separate periods for the convention and rest of the world, and eventually the leader was declared much later than expected.

Exactly what went wrong and why expected safeguards didn't work is no doubt already the subject of an investigation. But as an example of high profile online voting it's a worrying sign of how vulnerable it can be and how there's strong potential for disruption that deters many people from casting their votes.

Now sure online voting is used for a lot of private organisations. But most of their votes are much lower key with much less risk. The last online vote I participated in was for an alumni rep on a college council - who sets out to sabotage that sort of election? Rather fewer people than a high profile party or public election and so less conscious or financial consideration needed to be given to protecting the site.

I am sure there are all manner of procedures and safeguards that can be used for online voting. But either they're standard and the hackers still got through, or else the decision was made without enough consideration of the problem. And remember this is a quite technical and modern area it's unsurprising if those making the ultimate decisions and paying the cheques do not have the strongest grasp of every aspect needed. Prospective contractors can make their pitches based on the aspects, but they're ultimately selling to decision makers who have not grown up with computers all around them and often the necessary budgets are not forthcoming. A similar thing could be seen back during the run on Northern Rock when the bank's website proved unable to cope with the demand.

Could we safely use online voting for public elections? Leaving aside the wider issues I think the security factor is a big one that needs to be demonstrably handled first before jumping on the online bandwagon. A rerun of the NDP's problems on a public scale would bring a result into dispute, potentially ending up in the courts if the result was close, and would be far too tempting a target for the most disruptive. And with so much of our electoral administration split across many, many different bodies, including a lot of councils facing strong financial squeezes, I am not persuaded that no expense would be spared to ensure problems did not happen.

Leading from outside parliament?

Party leaders don't always have to be in Parliament. Sometimes they can lead their party and seek the premiership from outside. Today we may discover if one such leader in Australia has been successful and if a party in Canada will pick another.

Right now the Australian state of Queensland is voting in its state election. As noted before (Leading from outside the chamber), the Liberal National Party is being led from outside the state parliament by Campbell Newman, until last year the Mayor of Brisbane. If he succeeds both in leading the LNP to power he will be the first Australian premier since at least federation to pull this trick off. Mayors of other big cities in other countries may wish to try and follow his example. But we won't know until later if he's been successful in taking the target sat of Ashgrove.

Canada has a much more developed tradition of this with many leaders being picked who do not initially sit in the parliament. Even premiers have won their party leadership and been appointed to office either before winning a by-election, such as current British Columbia premier Christy Clark, or going straight to a general election, such as current Yukon prmier Darrell Pasloski. Today is the final day of the New Democratic Party leadership election to pick a new leader for Canada's main opposition party. Two of the contenders do not have seats in the Canadian House of Commons, Brian Topp and Martin Singh, and if either of them wins (it's rather more likely to be Topp than Singh) then they will have to either try to enter the Commons via a by-election or else lead their party from outside parliament until the next general election, then hope they can pick up a target seat. The latter option was followed by the last two NDP leaders (Alexa McDonough & Jack Layton) but since then the NDP has become the official opposition and waiting may no longer be an option. The former route is more mixed - there's a partially observed tradition that a new leader trying to enter the Commons is not opposed by the other major parties, but not all follow it. Way back in the 1940s the attempted comeback by Conservative leader Arthur Meighen was scuppered when he lost his by-election to the NDP's predecessors. More recently the Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory saw his leadership destroyed by by-election defeat in 2007.

Should we try this more often in the UK? Alex Salmond pulled it off in Scotland and there's no reason why Salmond should by sui generis. The obvious comparison to Campbell Newman would be Boris Johnson but there's equally no reason why someone who's been successful completely outside Westminster politics couldn't become a party leader and lead a bid from there. Or perhaps someone could take a mid career break from politics and then come back refreshed and renewed. I suspect it would take a smaller party to try this first - perhaps the Liberal Democrats in their quest to be "different" could give it a go? (But no, not Lembit!)

Could there be more Liberal Democrats?

Many have predicted that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition could lead to realignments in the party system. But did they expect these realignments to start outside the country?

The Canadian Liberal Party has been going through another round of sluggish polls and an unpopular leader who doesn't seem to be taking them anywhere. Michael Ignatieff must be thankful that Canada lacks a tradition of ruthlessly deposing leaders (and if people think the UK is harsh, just take a look at Australia!). Nevertheless he's polling badly and senior Liberals are starting to openly think the once unthinkable - a merger of the left parties, mainly to unite the Liberals and New Democratic Party.

What is really embarrassing for Ignatieff is that opinion polls exploring this option show that a merger would do less well under his leadership than under either his Liberal leadership rival Bob Rae or the NDP leader Jack Layton. (See ThreeHundredEight.com: New AR Poll: 8-pt CPC Lead - and Mergers?) At the moment the merger is just an idea being kite-flown, albeit with some pretty senior kite-flyers, but it could run and run. We shall see...

And what would this new party be called? Well the traditional way to do it is "one word from your party and one word from my party" and I doubt the NDP are suckers enough to accept their word being "Party". There is an obvious name already in use elsewhere in the world, so am I the first the christen the prospective group "Liberal Democrats"?

Will a coalition happen in Canada... or here?

On Tuesday the Canadian Parliament sits again, for the first time since the dramatic events at the beginning of December (When was this put to the electorate?, Has Canadian democracy triumphed? and Harper 1, Dion Nil ). In the weeks since then the Canadian Liberals have gone and done one of our Liberal Democrats' favourite things - decapitating their own leader. New leader Michael Ignatieff seems to be desperately searching for a way to get out of the proposed coalition with the New Democratic [sic] Party and the separatist Bloc Québécois - see Ottawa Citizen: Parliament vs. The People. It looks like for now Canadian democracy has triumphed, to the credit of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

But could such a situation happen in the UK? Just imagine if the next general election returns a hung parliament, as many have been speculating. And then if the Conservatives are the largest party but Labour forms a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish and Welsh separatists (the way things are going in Northern Ireland it's doubtful there'll be any Nationalist MPs actually taking seats in the Commons), thus giving a strong say in the running of the country to those who want to tear it up. The big point of contention may be over what the parties say in the general election. If some or all of the parties give pledges against a coalition they could not credibly claim a mandate.

And if particular parties campaign against each other it will be especially galling. If the Liberal Democrats campaign to take a Labour seat on the basis that "a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for Labour" (supported by a dodgy barchart) they will be betraying voters if they turn round and put Labour in government anyway. When pressed on the question of what the party will do in a hung parliament the Liberal Democrats are frequently evasive, either talking about vague general goals or saying they won't answer the question until the voting system is changed. If they want voters to trust them, they should try giving a clear answer for the entire country for once. But that would be totally alien to the party's nature.

Has Canadian democracy triumphed?

Thanks to ConservativeInternational for highlighting this one: Macleans.ca: Notes on a crisis: The End. Events in Canada have moved rapidly since my last post (When was this put to the electorate?). Prime Minister Stephen Harper has advised the Governor General to prorogue Parliament until the end of January, allowing time for sober reflection and preventing the never-put-to-the-electorate Liberal-NDP coalition from snatching power. And the opinion polls have shown a decisive shift in favour of the Conservatives and against the coalition parties. Meanwhile the realisation of what their deal involves has sunk in with the Liberals, as has the awfulness of their outgoing leader, Stéphane Dion. To call Dion Canada's answer to Sir Menzies Campbell would frankly be an insult to Campbell.

With Parliament prorogued, the coalition is dead. The only way they were going to make this thing stick, even temporarily, was by way of a speedy assumption of power, the glue that mends all breaks. But having lunged and missed, they will be very much on their back feet. I repeat: The coalition is over. I'll be surprised if it lasts the week.

But don't take my word for it. Two polls out today show that the coalition has backfired on its two main participants — hugely. Ekos has the Tories ahead by twenty points, 44-24, while Ipsos Reid puts the margin at an astounding 46-23. This is after the Tories had supposedly disgraced themselves by the "provocation" of cutting the political parties off the public teat, and by failing to provide adequate "stimulus."

Ipsos numbers show, further, that 60% of the public opposes the coalition, 62% are "angry" with it for trying to take power, while 68% support the Governor General's decision. The Grits can read the numbers as well as I can. There is no way they will return to this well.

Indeed, the caucus, after a three hour meeting this afternoon, seems to have other priorities in mind — namely forcing Dion from the leadership ASAP, rather than wait until the May convention. That's easier said than done, and is tangled up in the race to succeed him. For it only makes sense, if he is to be replaced quickly, to replace him with a permanent leader, and if the decision were made today it would almost certainly be Michael Ignatieff, and as Bob Rae can't abide that, he will be doing everything in his power to see to it that Dion stays in place.

(By the way "cutting the political parties off the public teat" refers to Conservative proposals to end the system whereby political parties get to dip their hands into taxpayers' wallets and get $1.95 for every single vote they poll. Would anyone seriously contemplate a £1 a vote system here?)

And so the Canadian tradition of governments decided in the ballot box, not in shabby deals amongst parties who said they wouldn't work together, is upheld. The biggest loser in the whole affair is Stéphane Dion. He'd already announced his resignation as leader in October (see No end of Liberal leadership elections!) but the leadership convention wasn't scheduled to take place until May. Now he is facing calls to go sooner than that.

Part of the collapse of support for Dion came in the very different broadcasts to the country by Harper and Dion. Harper's can be seen at ConservativeInternational: Canadian Conservatives launch 'hearts and minds' campaign to stay in power, Dion's at YouTube: Stephane Dion responds to Harper (and no, that out of focus is not a YouTube fault)). Yes someone in Dion's staff should have seen the PR disaster coming a mile off, but Dion himself should also have realised the failings of his chosen webcam format.

And so the winners of the last Canadian election continue to govern. Stephen Harper has triumphed, as has the principle that Canadian governments are decided at the ballot box.

See also: ConservativeInternational: Opinion polls set to kill opposition parties' attempt to oust Stephen Harper.

When was this put to the electorate?

Two months ago the people of Canada went to the polls (Canadian federal election, 2008) and the Conservative government increased its number of seats, whilst the Liberals got their worst result since federations. And not offered to the people at all was the prospect of a Liberal-New Democratic Party coalition.

Since then Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has announced his resignation (No end of Liberal leadership elections!) but it takes months to replace a Canadian political leader. The Conservative government has been getting on with the key task of running the country, whilst other politicians have been making deals in smoke filled rooms to produce a cynical deal to produce a Liberal-NDP coalition, with support from the separatist Bloc Québécois. The whole affair is already provoking a constitutional crisis in Canada that will test several straining points of the Westminster system. (2008 Canadian political dispute)

It is this kind of deal making and contempt for the voters that demonstrates why coalitions are government at their worse. The Liberals and New Democratic (sic) Party are playing the numbers game, claiming a majority of voters supported them at the last election. But nobody supported this proposed coalition - it wasn't put to the electorate! Voters, not political leaders, should decide who governs them.

No doubt there will be lots of Liberal Democrats (another sic) popping up to defend the situation. But I hope the UK never ends up in the same situation. Who governs this country after the next election should be decided by the voters, not by Nick Clegg's ambitions.