Vote On Your Keypads Now

[lankeela]

Having watched a rerun of 'Millionaire' I wondered why on earth Parliament has not installed some form of keypad voting to get instant results in votes instead of the 'division' debacles taking so much time - you would have thought in this day and age there would be an easier way of voting and counting them. After all they would all only get one vote each and they could have different letters for each motion.

[pixie374]

You would have thought so... but then we still vote with a cross on a piece of paper with a pencil.

[ichkeria]

Well sounds good, as long as you think the expense would be worth it.
I don’t thing the division lobbies are a “debacle” tho.
Estonia has pioneered electronic voting in elections for several years, based on their compulsory ID card system, tho that has its own issues.

[Buenchico]

The 'indicative' votes weren't carried out through MPs entering the division lobbies. They were carried out using paper voting slips.

There are long-term plans to move Parliament out of the existing building, so that MPs will (among other things):
(a) actually have enough seats to accommodate them all ; and
(b) be able to have their offices within the new building.
It would seem likely that electronic voting would be installed at the same time (as has happened in other national assemblies across the world, including in Wales https://www.assembly.wales/en/bus-home/plenary/business-plenary-information/types-of-plenary-business/Pages/voting.aspx ) but unless a reliable Bluetooth or wifi system can be introduced so that MPs could use portable devices it would seem to be impossible to introduce an electronic voting system at the present time.

[lankeela]

But did they have blue tooth and wifi when Millionaire was first aired? They seemed to manage with electronic keypads and displays - surely a simple solution to a mega waste of time?

[Arksided]

They'd spend too long dithering about which button to press... and ask for a recount. It'd be even better if they had a big 'Countdown' clock above head poncho's head (Mr Speaker)when the music kicked in they'd all panic.

[Buenchico]

Those voting on WWTBAM have a keypad for each seat but there are only seats in the House of commons for 427 out of the 650 MPs, so it would be impossible for each MP to have a voting console in front of him/her unless they had portable devices (which is why they'd need Bluetooth or wifi).

Further, there's no need for anyone to know how each member of the WWTBAM audience voted but our system of Parliamentary democracy requires that MPs' constituents must be able to see how they voted in every division. So a simple system liked that used in the TV studio wouldn't suffice.

[Hopkirk]

We could get Huawei to set up the system.

I'm sure it wouldn't occur to Vladimir Putin to hack into the system.