Vote - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Aristocratic concept with a democratic method.

Taking its source in the political institutions of the cities of antiquity, the practice of the vote is in the beginning an aristocratic concept; the choice of the members of the people for the exercise of the function of magistrate (of “commander”) being normally carried out by drawing lot and not by vote or election.

Thus, at the time aristocratic the Athenian King was “the elected official of the big families”. At the time democratic, the archontes forming the equivalent of the executive of our governments as well as the members of Héliée (the popular court) were drawn with the fate. Only the specialized magistrates, chosen within the big families, were elected. It was then a question of electing “the best” in a specialized field (for example construction of a naval fleet). In Greek the aristocracy indicates “the government of best”.

The aristocratic design of the vote will perdura until the modern time, and partly explains the tradition of the election of the Emperor by the princes of Saint Empire Romain Germanique.

It is only with the advent of the Libéralisme so much in its multiple forms (philosophical, political, economic etc) that the concept of vote could be worked again and comparable as one of the practices at the base of the democratic institutions.

However conceptual confusion on the gasoline even of the vote and the election are today still at the origin of thorough debates relating to democratic alternatives to the electoral system.

The question

The whole of the voters can have to answer a question by yes or not.

One can ask him to choose a name among several proposed. It is the uninominal system. One can seek to draw up a list of elected officials. It is the poll plurinominal.

Modes of votes

Vote for all

Vote censitaire

The vote censitaire distinguishes at least two categories of citizen (at least two, sometimes more) according to the amount from their (S) tax (S). Various justifications are advanced with these systems which hold the vote with the easy classes. The first comes from the origin even of the Parliaments: their function being to grant the taxes and to control of it the use, it appears logical to bind the vote to the payment of the tax. Second is aristocratic: the richness would be the sign of a greater capacity (intellectual and moral) and thus of a greater legitimacy to be taken part in the common Décision.

Vote by function

Certain hierarchical communities hold the vote with a certain group defined by the rank reached. It is the case in the Monastic orders where the Frères convers do not vote: they do not have “a say”, i.e. they cannot be expressed at the assembly. In the same way, only the cardinal take part in the election of the Pape. In France (Ve République), the Sénat is elected by only the Great Electors.

Indirect suffrage

The voters nominate by their vote the persons charged to take the final Décision. It is the case in particular of the election of the president of IVe République in France, and that of the election of the mayors. In Ve République, it is also the mode of election of the Sénat.

Vote by district

Only the inhabitants of a district are brought to vote: it is the case of the election of the city council men.

Various designs of the electorate

There exist two visions of the electorate which are each one attachable either by the restricted vote or by the vote for all:

the electorate function;
right electorate.

Electorate function

The concept of the electorate function, it is to consider that the vote is a function and that consequently, only the individuals having the capacities (Intelligence, economic level) to carry on this activity can exert it.

For Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès which was a partisan of this theory the only “Actionnaires of the large company” its sufficiently legitimate to carry on the activity of vote. Sieyès distinguishes the “active citizens” those which pay the tax and which are able to vote, of the passive citizens not having the sufficient incomes to pay the tax, incompetents to vote. Sieyès justifies this position by noting that only the rich citizens contribute to the good walk of the nation's economy and that it is consequently right that they influence the Political life by the means of the vote.

This vision of the electorate is attachable with the concept of the vote censitaire. From where the presence of the vote censitaire in the Constitution of 1791 of which Sieyès with contributed to the drafting.

Right electorate

This mink of the electorate considers that the vote is a right. Indeed for its partisans, all the citizens must take part in the political life.

This vision of the electorate is attachable with the concept of the vote for all.

Mode of expression

The voter can be caused to express several manners.

Vote with secret bulletin

The vote with secret bulletin, also called secret vote, consists in delivering its opinion between several proposals, in an anonymous way. Generally, the Décision is put in a ballot box to be stripped once the finished vote. The examination is done in public, and under the eyes of the assessors, in order to avoid the frauds. It is especially used by the citizens.

This type of vote makes it possible to prevent the pressures on the voters. It is often dissimulated by a Isoloir.

The bulletin can be already prérempli without no modification being possible (it is the case of many elections in France). Or the bulletin can be modified or filled by the voter giving him thus more freedom of choice (see Voting system)

Vote by a show of hands

The vote by show of hands, consists in raising its hand to deliver its opinion between several proposals. It allows a fast catch of Décision, because the examination is quasi immediate. But that obliges so that all the voters are present at the same time. For this reason this type of vote is generally used by the elected officials when they are joined together (Municipal council, Parlement, majority of the international organizations).

The vote by show of hands is always practiced in two Swiss cantons, Glaris and the Rhodos-Interior demicanton of Appenzell, by the primary assemblies of the citizens brought together in Landsgemeinde, symbols of a secular democracy. It is the increase in the number of the citizens, and the introduction of the female vote which involves the progressive replacement of these assemblies by traditional votes with secret bulletin in polling stations. Thus the demicanton of Obwald abolished it in 1999.

Vote public

The public vote consists in individually inviting each member of the assembly to express her vote publicly. This one is then consigned in the register of the deliberations and it is then possible to publish the vote of the elected officials.

Vote by correspondence

Usually practiced of Swiss where in certain cantons more half of the votes are expressed of this manner, it consists in sending in advance its ballot paper by post way; an identification number makes it possible to guarantee that a person votes only once, while maintaining the secrecy of the vote. It is feared sometimes that this process does not guarantee the secrecy of the insulator. Indeed, although the examination of the envelopes of vote takes place in two times (opening of the envelope containing the chart of identification of the voter by the municipal authorities, then with the fence of the poll, opening of the closed envelopes containing ballot papers by the electoral office), one cannot guarantee the secrecy of the vote carried out in residence.

Vote by procuration

The vote by proxy makes it possible to the constituent to designate an agent who will vote in his place. The course of the vote is in addition identical. Much simplified in France since 2003, this form of vote was used much at the time of the presidential election of 2007 in France. The passion being such as the police stations were sometimes in stock shortage of forms.

This form of vote rests on confidence between the constituent and the agent. The constituent cannot indeed entrust an envelope sealed with his vote under penalty of nullity.

In France, it is also possible to be the agent only of one voter (except particular case of constituent abroad).

E-voting

Vote by key

Used to the National Assembly, it gave place in the past to certain abuses, like the use of multiple keys (sometimes more than ten by deputies replacing of the colleagues absent). The Constitution of Ve République authorizes only two of them; the current system of keys does not make it possible to check the observation of this rule for the moment.

Vote by Internet

The vote by Internet is also sometimes practiced. Its principal disadvantage for the moment is the absence of insulator (nothing guarantees that the candidate is alone in front of the computer at the time when he votes, nor does not allow to check it). Other conditions to fill are:

the absolute secrecy of the vote
the possibility for the voter and him to only check that its vote was indeed taken into account in the direction indicated
the absence of pressure on behalf of the environment on the voter

Various experiments were led in Suisse and votes it by Internet was already put in practice for certain local polls and on some common tests.

In 2002, the French Sénat proposed a system of e-voting.

Examination

The Dépouillement can be carried out:

with the hand. It then requires the presence of tellers to check honest countings. This system can be considered only for simple modes of expression.
by computer. It requires the control of the sources of the computer program of examination, and the compiler used to transform these sources into achievable. If control uses a electronic Signature, the management software of this signature must itself be checked, which seems to open a recursivity without end. It allows more sophisticated modes of expression.

Voting systems

Importance that revêt the act to vote in a democratic system justifies that many theorists are leaning on the voting systems. To date still, several voting systems are in force causing many polemics initiated by their defenders. This reflection is a necessary step for the defense of the democracy.

References

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