Voting and ballot secrecy.

Mon, 2 May 2011
5 min read
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I’m quite sad that political parties have to use little pockets of time in their speeches to reassure Singaporeans that their votes are secret.

If we still have to spend time discussing fundamental things like these, then what actual progress have we Singaporeans made as human beings?

Hence, I’m doing my part as a concerned citizen by posting this guide on voting and ballot secrecy, adapted from The Workers’ Party post on the matter.

You may, if you wish, download a guide here: everything on one-page or optimised for easier reading.

—

Have you heard people say that your vote is not secret?

Well, they’re either lying, or they’re stupid, or both. In all cases, they’re wrong – your vote is secret!

Here are some answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the voting process:

  1. Why does the election official call out my name and voter number at the polling station before giving me the ballot paper?
  2. Why must ballot papers have serial numbers?
  3. What happens after I cast my vote?
  4. After the election, politicians are able to highlight how certain communities supported Y party or Z party. This shows that votes are not secret!
  5. How else can you reassure me that my vote is secret?

Q: Why does the election official call out my name and voter number at the polling station before giving me the ballot paper?

A: This enables the representatives of political parties at the polling station to verify and cross out your name on their registers.

It is a transparent process to help all political parties:

  1. Prevent double-voting by any voter, and
  2. Ensure that the total number of ballot papers issued out and the total number of votes are the same.

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Q: Why must ballot papers have serial numbers?

A: This is to prevent instances of election fraud, such as:

  • Bringing counterfeit ballot papers into the polling station,
  • Vote impersonation,
  • Exchanging ballot papers with those that have been marked by others, etc.

Places like the United Kingdom or New York State also maintain the practice of numbering their ballot papers for the above-mentioned reasons.

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Q: What happens after I cast my vote?

A: You can download a handy infographic from the Workers’ Party website, displayed here:

In sum, the following process will take place:

  1. When polls close at 8 pm, voting boxes are sealed and moved to counting centres. Civil servants will count the votes in the presence of the candidates and agents from all parties contesting an area.
  2. Once the votes are counted, the votes, together with all the relevant records – i.e. the stubs of the ballot papers as well as unused ballot papers – are sealed and transferred to the vault at the Supreme Court where they are kept for at least 6 months.NOTE:
    • The votes cannot be retrieved unless a court order is obtained on the grounds of election fraud.
    • According to the Elections Department website, no court order has been issued to retrieve votes to date.
  3. At the end of 6 months, the sealed votes and records will be transferred to an incineration plant for destruction. The whole procedure is witnessed by candidates/agents from all parties. Seals on the votes and records have been found to be intact.

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Q: After the election, politicians are able to highlight how certain communities supported Y party or Z party. This shows that votes are not secret!

A: No. Your individual vote is secret. Nobody knows for sure how each individual votes, even if an individual states that she has voted for Y party or Z party.

Why, then, are politicians able to make the above-mentioned claim? There are two reasons:

  1. First, the existence of polling stations:
    • Each polling station serves about 10 – 20 blocks of flats and/or a few landed housing estates e.g. XX01 Polling Station in XX Constituency serves Blk 1 – Blk 15 of XX Road.
    • Since the counting of votes is done by polling stations, it is possible to know the combined results of each polling station, which comprises a few thousand votes.
    • Voting results by polling stations are accessible to all political parties contesting in that constituency.
    • It is possible to estimate support by zones of residents e.g. The residents of XX Road in XX01 zone are more supportive of Y party, while the residents in XX02 zone are more supportive of Z party.
    • However, it is impossible to narrow down the level of support to a particular block or an individual.
  2. Second, comments of politicians may be based on other estimates such as ground feel or verbal feedback.

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Q: How else can I be reassured that my vote is secret?

A: Tampering with the electoral process is illegal and tantamount to breaking the law.

Doing so is not in the interest of any political party elected to government – its power and legitimacy will be in question and its reputation tarnished locally and internationally.

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(Adapted from “Your Vote is Secret” by The Workers’ Party. More information on ballot secrecy can be found at the Singapore Elections Department website.

Download a guide here: everything on one-page or optimised for easier reading.

Lesson of the Day: “Trawlers” by Alfian Sa’at.

Sat, 30 Apr 2011
1 min read
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Wow! Election fever has hit our shores, and many people are attempting to ram many agendas – perceived or otherwise – down our throats.

Hence, I thought it’d be nice to also ram my literary agenda down everyone’s throat for everyone’s nutritional needs, by way of a poem that has the dubious honour of still being relevant in this day and age.

Watch this video first (click on this link if you can’t see the embedded video) for schema-building purposes before reading the poem:

Happy learning!

—

    Trawlers
    By Alfian Sa’at

    Come election time
    we would see those vans
    crowned with loudspeakers
    like wind vanes-

    with a supply of their own
    hot air. Their mission:
    to catapult slogans in four directions
    and four official languages.

    No child throws stones at it.
    And old women chew their curses
    like betel leaves, tangy, unspat.
    Woe be the motorist

    trapped behind the hearse-crawl
    of the harbingers of “good years”.
    Who says that lightning
    never strikes twice at the same spot?

    Here it comes again:
    not so much a van as a trawler,
    casting huge nets, not subtle hooks;
    the only way one catches mouthless fish.

—

From: One Fierce Hour. Singapore: Landmark Books, 1998.

I am the wind.

Sun, 30 Jan 2011
4 min read
1 Comment

Or What’s the point of learning literature? (Part II)

(Just to clarify that I’m neither a military nut nor a fanboy of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). I just have a keen interest in SAF-related issues for reasons I will not mention in public.)

I think the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) has produced a good advertisement that makes use of the principles of literary technique to effectively communicate its message to the viewer.

Take a look at the advertisement here:

(Watch the video in a separate window if you can’t see the embedded video.)

The voiceover text, if you want to read it while the video is being played:

I am the wind.
On land, no blade of grass moves without me.
At sea, every rising wave is touched by me.
Wherever you are, I am high enough to see you
and strong enough to reach out to you 5
and place strength in your hand.
You may not always see me
but you will always feel me
for I am here
for a higher purpose. 10

I won’t discuss the visual semiotics because that isn’t the point of my post.

However, I’ll carry out a bit of literary analysis on the first ‘two’ lines of the text to demonstrate some sense of its literary merit as well as articulate some of the ideas that the advertisement aims to convey to the viewer.

As the “I” in the text represents the entity that is the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), the “wind” is used as a symbol of the RSAF’s ‘invisibility’ (i.e. how it can operate without being detected by the enemy), its speed, its power, and its versatility at being able to be both strong yet gentle in different times of need.

On one level, the line “no blade of grass moves without me” is an image which evokes ideas of the RSAF’s power – the RSAF has the ability to influence “move[ment]”, especially in inanimate objects that would otherwise not move on their own.

However, if we also imagine the “blade of grass” to be a metaphor for the infantry soldier, which is a symbol of the Army, then the line is also meant to convey an idea of the superiority of the RSAF in the SAF’s war-fighting capabilities: it is at the forefront of military operations in terms of intelligence gathering efforts and attack manoeuvers, to say the least. {This is reinforced in the “sea” imagery used in line 3, which I will not discuss now for want of time/space.) At the same time, the combined image of objects “on land” and “at sea” moving with the assistance of the “wind” also conveys ideas of the interconnectedness of the three arms in war-fighting operations.

Okay, I know this is somewhat wankerish and some people might think I am stretching the limits of plausibility with my analysis, but do me a favour: assume that I am right for the time being.

Now that we’re all on the same page i.e. my analysis is right, what’s the significance of this advertisement in the larger scheme of things?

A well-wrought out advertisement like this can achieve many aims. Besides its primary aim of enticing people to sign on with the RSAF, the advertisement:

  • Instils a sense of national pride in the SAF, from the point of view of the citizenry, thereby increasing national confidence etc., and
  • Acts as one form of deterrence (among other deterrence strategies that the SAF uses) to ward off would-be aggressors, from an external point of view.

So one doesn’t need to know literary devices or techniques in order to consciously or unconsciously receive the implied messages that are sent to the recipient i.e. the person watching the advertisement.

But one would need to have some sense of literary technique in order to be able to create an advertisement as good as this one to achieve said aims I mentioned earlier.

And that, my friends, is another reason why there’s a point in learning literature as a point of departure toward doing other things in life.

P.S. I know I said I wouldn’t discuss the visual semiotics of the ad. But seriously – jogging girl is pretty cute.