The Association to Improve Government, in its Mission Statement, expresses the objective to require secret ballot voting by all political bodies at all levels of government. This concept is described in more detail in its Position Paper outlining the concept and how this change would eliminate political corruption.
The initial reaction of most individuals, when presented with this idea, is fairly consistent.
It is typically expressed in the following key points:
1. The electorate has the right to know how their elected representatives vote on any issue.
2. Knowing their voting record will allow individuals to decide whether to support them in the next election.
3. Politicians must be held accountable
4. Secret ballot at the governmental level would hide this knowledge from the electorate.
5. We can’t trust politicians.
In order to test this public opinion, the Association to Improve Government developed a fairly simple survey.
The survey consisted of only 4 questions that were created to discern if individuals actually do pay attention to the voting record of their elected representatives.
The Survey
The survey is administered in a one-on-one, personal situation and it is preferable that no other individuals are present to hear the respondent’s answers. The use of electronic surveying nullifies the results as it would allow individuals the obvious opportunity to look up the answers before replying.
Questions:
1. What is the name of your MP? (or: Member of Parliament, Congressman, Federal Rep., etc.)
2. What is the name of your MPP? (or: State Representative, Provincial Representative, etc.)
3. What is the name of your Mayor? (or: highest elected local representative, etc.)
4. Have you ever looked up the actual voting record of any of the above?
The questions were created to verify statistically if the public opinion that the electorate has the right to know how their representatives vote so they can hold them accountable is demonstrated by activity whereby the electorate actually do review the voting record of their representatives at any level of government.
The Results
At this point the survey is just beginning (Aug 2016) and these statistics will be updated as the participant count increases. The survey has begun in Canada but we expect to expand it globally going forward with the assistance of association members. Here’s the initial results:
1. Individuals that know the name of their MP. 0%
2. Individuals that know the name of their MPP. 22%
3. Individuals that know the name of their Mayor. 56%
4. Individuals that have actually looked up voting records. 11%
These results would indicate that although the general public opinion strongly holds to the concept that they need to know the voting record of their elected representatives, very few actually pay attention to this.
Conclusions
The general public holds strong opinions that open balloting allows them to hold their representative accountable but they do not actually review the voting of their representative.
1. In the majority of cases, individuals do not even know the name of their elected representative at the federal and state level.