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Change on the way at last? Hope so!
http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=9250
This Report provides an overview of the key findings and proposed actions arising from the review process. It summarises the role of various Departments, Offices, Agencies and Registration Authorities in the existing registration process. It also examines the costs.
It suggests improvements and proposals for change, such as –
* The need for a single body to manage the registration process
* Personal identifiers / PPS Numbers
* Data Sharing
* Continuous Registration and a Computerised Register
* Legislation
* Counter Fraud Measures
* Promotion
* Postal Voting
* Spoilt Votes
* A National Returning Officer
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0423/register.html
The report praised the system in Northern Ireland, where a single electoral body manages the process and registration is compulsory.
As some of you (anyone reading this still?) may be aware, I still don't see why online voting isn't being more enthusiastically investigated... There doesn't appear to be anything spectacularly insurmountable - & let's not forget the often spectacular failings of the paper ballot, even in stable democracies! (Scotland I mean, not Zimbabwe);
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Election-chaos-unacceptable-say-observers.3283092.jp
INTERNATIONAL observers last night labelled the Holyrood election voting chaos "totally unacceptable".
Robert Richie, executive director of US-based Fair Vote, was among more than 30 experts from North America who watched Scottish democracy in action. But he said the difficulties, which saw one in 10 votes rejected, amounted to Scotland's version of the "hanging chads" fiasco in Florida which marred the 2000 US presidential election...
He added: "There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned. It's totally unacceptable to have so many votes spoiled. There are parallels with the problems in the presidential election in Florida."
Richie also expressed concern about a lack of uniform standards in judging which votes were rejected and which were deemed to be valid. "It seemed that votes on one side of the room that were thought to be OK - on the other side of the room would have been rejected."
Scotland on Sunday has verified that more than 81,000 votes were spoiled following Thursday's vote - equivalent to the turnout of three entire constituencies...
The suggested changes however should go some way towards making it possible (Versus the current system with it's hundreds of thousands of errors according to 1 report).
Update - Yes, yes, HD DVD died in January :(
Paramount moves to HD DVD only, while Michael Bay retracts his anger over Paramount dropping Blu-ray support. So what has Michael Bay got to say now?
"Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three blu-ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted - nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you - I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.
As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.
So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks!
So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!"
Meanwhile Paramount clarifies why they've switched;
For one thing, the lower prices of the players: It's good for consumers, it's good for our customer base.
For another thing, HD DVD came out of the DVD Forum. The DVD Forum is very experienced at developing and managing specs. [HD DVD] was launched in a very stable way, with stable specifications, and they had specified a reference player model, so all players had to be compatible with the HDi interactivity layer, and all players had to be capable of the interactivity. So when we publish titles in the future that have interactivity, we can be assured that every HD DVD player will be able to handle this content...
At this particular point in time, we've been able to supply more features with HDi and HD DVD than with BD-Java and Blu-ray Disc. What we have typically done in practice is that we've created the interactive scenarios in HD DVD and then tried to pull them into Blu-ray. But that has not been entirely possible: Some things we can do in HDi are not supported in BD-Java. If you're going to do BD-Java, you need someone who's capable of programming at a low level. With HDi, you don't need somebody with that additional level of training. We don't need programmers to code our discs...
At this moment in time, it's an indefinite commitment. The core of this announcement comes from our experience, and what our consumers are looking for. We hope this will influence consumers' choices.
Having just purchased the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive & 300 I'm understandably fairly pleased that HD DVD is picking up again. Hopefully post-Christmas the format battlefield will be a little clearer.
If you were inclined believe the ads in the local media you'd imagine that a price war of epic proportions was about to break out between D.I.D. Electrical & Joyces. Having saved €900 (€2300 versus €3200) on a 40" Sony Bravia LCD by ordering it from Komplett.ie instead of Joyces I was fairly interested to see what some competition would have.
1 Metre Monster Cable HDMI 300;
D.I.D. Electrical - €90 | Shopallmonster.com - $37.49
1 Metre Monster Cable HDMI 400;
D.I.D Electrical - €120 | Shopallmonster.com - $79.95
None. Excluding shipping, I can purchase either of these online for HALF the price. Ain't real competition great? Shop online folks. From personal experience I'd highly recommend sites such as Komplett.ie & TECHNIKdirekt for quality electronics at good prices.
An interesting read for sure from the Irish Independent last week. Hearkens back to some comments made in my original Can't we just vote online? entry. Snip-snip - emphasis mine;
Now 44pc of non-voters interviewed by a pollster have claimed they failed to exercise their franchise because of difficulties getting to their polling station on election day.
More than half of all people questioned in a representative national sample said they would have availed of e-voting methods had they been available.
These included voting through a secure website, calling a telephone voting service, or text-voting by mobile phone. If these methods were available, 51pc of all Irish people say they would use them, including two-thirds of young people aged 18-34. Only half of this group voted in the June 24 poll.
The survey was carried out last month among 931 adults nationwide by the independent research firm Millward Brown IMS. The firm says the survey indicates that an additional 395,640 people "would have voted" if a variety of e-voting methods had been available on polling day.
The actual election turnout was just over two million people, meaning the extra vote could have affected the destination of a swathe of seats...
Almost three-quarters (72pc) of those who didn't vote, but would have been willing to use electronic methods, were in the 18-34 age category.
Voting by mobile phone was the most popular option for 18-24-year-olds, while using the internet on a secure website was preferred by 25-34-year-olds, and calling a telephone voting service most popular for 50-year-olds and over. Those in the 35-49 category were evenly split between options...
John McCabe, managing director of Damovo Ireland, which commissioned the survey, said: "This survey reveals that Irish people are very open to the proposition of voting by electronic means.
"Younger people show most interest in voting remotely via the web, phone or by text. For many of this generation, the concept of going to a polling station to write on a card seems strange." "With another quarter-of-a-million Irish teenagers reaching voting age at the next election, the government should start to consider additional voting methods."
John McCabe, whose firm specialises in business communication, said he recognised that security would have to play an important part in any decision to introduce new e-voting options in Ireland.
"We realise that any of the proposed methods would have to be rigorously tested. We would recommend that any attempt to introduce other methods of e-voting should be phased-in gradually, possibly using local elections as a first step.
"Ireland should be harnessing technological advancements to ensure that all of our citizens can be included in the democratic process."
As regards a few comments received;
Convenient for who?...
A significant proportion of the population according to the above survey!
On the spoilt vote issue, do you realise that some people actually want to spoil their vote, so inability to spoil would be a backward step.
Many people who spoiled their votes didn't actually intend to. E-voting would represent a step forwards as such. Those intent on spoiling their vote should simply stick with a paper ballot - as they currently have to.
The fundamental difference between a voting transaction and the submission of a tax return or an ATM withdrawal is the essential requirement for anonymity (to protect the secrecy of the ballot) combined with high security (to protect control of the nation). With a tax return or ATM withdrawal, it is essential that the transaction is linked directly to an individual. With a vote, it is essential that the transaction is NOT linked to an individual. I would be interested to hear your proposals for ensuring anonymous yet secure electronic transactions.
Hashing would play a part. Essentially specific data is used to create a unique value, e.g. p4OqMcDW33DzkGR7+UskcFv75yq/Jb7K49mRwRYHLdw0+HTwq3sS; this cannot be reverse-engineered so it wouldn't be possible to extract personal information from it. It's secure & it's anonymous.
You also seem to have ignored the importance of the private voting booth in ensuring the integrity of the election process. By insisting that all votes take place in a private booth, you ensure that there is no possibility that a voter can be made to vote under duress (possibly by a family member). You also ensure that there is no possibility of vote buying or selling. Once you allow voting to take place outside of a private booth, you open up the doors to duress voting and vote buying. I would be interested to hear your proposals for preventing either of these serious abuses with remove voting.
I wonder what voters in Zimbabwe would say to that... You could say that the opposite is true - requiring people to attend a local polling station in order to vote actually encourages such behaviour. Conversely, with E-voting ANYWHERE can be your own personal polling station - How much more liberating is that?! & there's always the Estonia Experience;
No failures were found in the technical system of e-voting. No cases of buying e-votes have become public and no legal proceedings were initiated. The legitimacy of election results has not been contested by referring to e-voting.
The AGLOCO Viewbar has finally been released. From the guys behind AllAdvantage; this offers a similar opportunity to earn money by having a small viewbar visible while browsing (It's the same size as the Windows Taskbar). Currently you can only have the Viewbar active for up to 5 hours per month (About 10 minutes per day) so it's not much of a stretch to reach your monthly cap - you can then just switch it off until the next month.
As with most of these things, to get a real future benefit you need to refer people. It won't cost you anything and you can Uninstall / Unsubscrive anytime you wish, so check it out. With several hundred thousand members already, it's hoped this could be a success on the scale of YouTube / MySpace.
Click here to read Part 1.
Click here to read Part 2.
So what can you expect from all this? Well, I got a tax refund of €1500+ for 2005 & 2003. Of course, it is possible you may be determined to owe money, so here's where some quick & easy calculation is useful;
- If you return to the View the Tax Credits and Incomes information currently held by Revenue in Revenue On-line Services, take note of the Net Credits figure for each of the years (This is the cumulative total of the listed Tax Credits) and the Net Rate Band (SRCOP) (Your income up to this value is taxed at the Standard rate, i.e. 20%. Excess is taxed at the Higher rate, i.e. 41% for 2007, 42% for prior years).
- Multiplying your Net Credits by 5 gives you your Tax-free Income for that year, e.g. for 2006 my Net Credits were €6110 - €6110 x 5 = €30550, so I could earn €30550 without paying any tax.
- By returning to the View the Tax Credits and Incomes information currently held by Revenue select the PAYE Balancing Statement (P21) - Request, for the years listed. The next screen displays your Pay & Tax for the selected year. Take note of these figures (If you had several jobs you may need to note a few - it's the cumulative totals we are interested in though). You do not want to request a review until you are sure you will be entitled to a refund.
- By comparing your Net Credits x 5, Net Rate Band (SRCOP) against your total Pay & Tax for a year you should be able to determine whether you are entitled to a refund or not, e.g. For 2005 my Net Credits were 5400, 5400 x 5 = 27000. My cumulative Pay & Tax for 2005 indicated my Pay was 25000 & Tax was 255. As such I'm entitled to a refund of 255 for 2005. Accordingly I would return to View the Tax Credits and Incomes information currently held by Revenue set the PAYE Balancing Statement (P21) to 2005, hit Request & follow the prompts to confirm my request. Expect a cheque in the post or your bank account credited depending on whether or not you supplied your bank details in your Profile.
- Again, note the four year look back. If you want to dig out Tax Credit Certificates / P60s for 2004 and 2003 you can perform the same calculations, but you would need to contact your local Tax Office about having a review performed for these years if you determine you may be due a refund.
P21 Reviews are particularly worth looking into for Married couples. Unless otherwise stated when you are married you are assessed on the Joint-Assessment Basis. Effectively when you request a P21 Review for prior years you and your spouses Tax Credits, Pay and Tax details are combined. This can yield a large refund as it's entirely possible that one spouse may not be fully using the Tax Credits that they have been allocated, while the other may indeed have used theirs.
As such, if you're married you can perform much the same checks as above, but combine your Net Credits, Pay and Tax details together to determine your liability / refund.
Click here to read Part 1.
I assume by now you've registered with Reach Services and received your Revenue PIN? Then go to Revenue On-line Services clicking the Employees (PAYE) Login, followed by Full ROS PAYE Online Services. Once logged in;- Select Tax Credits and Incomes.
- Select View the Tax Credits and Incomes information currently held by Revenue. The page this loads states the Tax Credits which you have been assigned for the year - PAYE Tax Credit and Personal Tax Credit being the standard two, though others may also be listed.
- Most importantly, are there others that you are entitled to that aren't listed? Check and see. Some of the most popular being Trade Union Subscriptions, Rent Tax Credit, Mortgage Interest Tax Relief... Select the Add/Amend button in order to Add them as appropriate.
- Use the Change Year button to ensure you have claimed for the appropriate Tax Credits for the listed previous years also.
- Updates to your Tax Credits will be performed within a few days, with updated Tax Credit Certificates issued as appropriate. Depending on your Income you may receive a tax refund or at least reduce the tax deducted from your salary; where adjustments have been made to prior years, i.e. 2006 and 2005, reviews are carried out to determine if you are due a refund based on the Pay and Tax details supplied by your Employer.
It's worth noting that you are entitled to "look back" 4 years, Revenue On-line Services only displays back to 2005 (Well for me anyway). If you need to make changes to 2004 or 2003 you will need to contact your local Tax Office. I'll cover a few remaining details such as P21 Reviews & basic calculations on why you would want to be making these changes in Part 3.
Click here to read Part 3.
