The Gazette 1971

EDITORIAL

Secrecy of the Ballot

makes it possible at least theoretically to trace the voter's ballot paper and thus to discover how he has cast his vote. Mr. Justice McLoughlin may well he right when he states that this was a happening which, in the light of experience and of reason, cannot ever happen. Yet, at the same time, the majority of the Court stressed that it was essential that the manner in which the voter cast his votes should not he disclosed to anyone, and that the authorities should not have even a remote possibility of checking how a particular vote was cast.

The decision of the majority of the Supreme Court in McMahon i> Attorney-General is unlikely to please active politicians who will doubtless contend that it will henceforth facilitate personation. The majority of the Court, in construing the words contained in Article 16 (1) (4) of the Constitution, "voting shall be by secret ballot", held that this entailed absolute secrecy, and not the limited secrecy that had prevailed up to now. This limited secrecy consisted of the fact that the mark- ing of the voter's number on the counterfoil already bears the number of the voter's ballot paper, and thus

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