‘Vote Early and Vote Often’. The origins of the tongue-in-cheek phrase is obscure. Historian James Morgan, in a 1926 publication, identified John Van Buren as the originator of the phrase, but it has also been attributed to characters as notorious as Al Capone and Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago.
It also has a very Irish flavour. In a 1933 debate on the Local Government (Dublin) Bill a very odd exchange took place between Fianna Fail Minister for Local Government Seán T. O’Kelly and opposition parties. Thomas Kelly, a Fianna Fail TD, I think sarcastically, posited the idea of voting on behalf of a sick, or even a dead person.
“At any rate, personation would be no harm. It is a good turn. If a man is dead and you knew the opinions he held while alive, what harm would it be to vote for him? If a poor man is sick in hospital and not able to get out, surely it is a good turn to see that his vote is registered. If he has gone away and his neighbours know his opinions, I do not see any harm in personation. I think
I encouraged a lot of that class of thing in my day. At one time, I saw that the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland voted right—the first time in his life that he voted right. He did not get up early enough and he waited for his breakfast before he came to the polling station. When he went into the booth, he found that he had been voted for. He was very indignant but he should have got up early and not minded his breakfast. He should have done his duty to his country first.
General Mulcahy (Fine Gael) – “Are we to take these as instructions to Fianna Fáil candidates in the Dublin elections?”
“Yes; vote early and often and maybe the cry will not then come from the benches opposite that we only returned five or six members.”
It is a fascinating exchange, and hears from many of the most influential figures in the history of Irish politics, even if time has rendered it difficult to follow. But the opportunity to vote early and to vote often has arisen again.
On 4th November, the Department of Education launched its Primary School Survey, inviting teachers, parents and prospective parents to state their preferences for English/Irish-language schools, single/mixed-sex schools and faith/non-faith-based schools. For a parent or a prospective parent of a child to participate, they simply have to insert their Eircode and then ‘confidentially’ answer the three questions.
So simple, so straightforward. What could possibly go wrong? Lots.
It is possible to complete the survey multiple times, either for a single Eircode or for multiple Eircodes. It is possible to do this from the same device (anyone with a basic knowledge of computers knows how to delete cookies) or from multiple devices.
I can complete the survey for myself – and I can complete it for others. I can complete it for my neighbours, surreptitiously. I can go to ‘find an eircode’ website and complete it for every house in my schools’ catchment area.
Voting often can load the dice to influence the future primary school arrangements for my daughter.
I don’t know what happens when multiple submissions for a single Eircode are completed, but if I vote early I can hope that the first submission is the one that is used.
Vote early, vote often.
It sounds like I am making light of this. Not at all. There is a lobby for more Irish language schools. There is a hotly contested debate about the benefits of single-sex schools (I will ignore Minister McEntee’s slip when launching the survey where she referred to ‘same-sex’ schools). But unless you have been living under a rock for decades, the hot-button topic is about patronage and, unless you are extremely naïve, the results of this survey will likely be used as a stick to further the push for divestment of schools under Catholic patronage.
The 2011 Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector, despite inconclusive results and a questionable process, has survived for over a decade in the never-ending quest to offer greater ‘choice’ to parents.
This isn’t the place to discuss the merits or demerits, the rights or wrongs, of divestment, but in the context of this survey, it must be understood that there are many parties with vested interests and very strong feelings about this – much more so than on the other two subjects. Irrespective of the desires of parents, who are always reluctant to change what is working for them, the lobby for divestment does not relent. Strangers and advocates have an almost unhealthy obsession with seeking to influence the education of other people’s children – in the name of pluralism, choice, or whatever. They seek to do this at the national level because whenever it goes local, parents tend to refuse changes. Abstract ideals fall when they encounter hard reality.
Yes, there are parents who would like greater choice – or a different choice to what is available – but national level ‘statistics’ cannot be used to pressgang a ‘choice’ that is not wanted at local level. Where the number of schools are finite, ‘choice’ is not possible without reducing that choice to forced ‘non-denominational’ education, on the majority. As an aside, the Primary School Survey conflates ‘multi-denominational’ with ‘non-denominational’, while unashamedly reminding respondents of all those Catholic schools in the country, just as they are about to take the survey. Psychological manipulation?
“a denominational school is a school with a religious patron – the vast majority of primary schools are under Catholic patronage. A multi-denominational school is a school under a non-religious patron, where children learn about all faiths and belief systems through a multi-denominational programme”
The aims of the survey are not neutral. The FAQs on the website state the politicized nature of what is being assessed – and aimed for:
“The survey is aimed at establishing whether there is demand for a single-sex school to change to become a co-educational school, demand for a school under a denominational (religious) patron to change to become a school under a multi-denominational (non-religious) patron, demand for a school which provides education mainly through English to change to a school which provides education mainly through Irish in order to provide more choice for parents”
If you are a parent with only co-ed schools in your locality, your desire of a single-sex option is not under consideration. In relation to ethos, it is only change from religious to non-denominational that is being assessed. Minority faiths are not having their desires considered – or it is assumed they would prefer a non-denominational patron to a religious patron, as it is frequently presented that only non-denominational (secular more than ‘multi-denominational’) can be ‘inclusive’.
The Department of Education has clearly stated that parents’ Eircodes will be used to make granular assessments of demand for English/Irish-language schools, single/mixed-sex schools and faith/non-faith-based schools at the catchment level.
“We will use the survey results to input into our analysis of national, local and school-specific data to help us with planning at primary school level … Where there is demand from parents for a multi-denominational ethos, the department will provide a facilitator with a broad knowledge of the education system to assist the school community in their journey to becoming a multi-denominational school.”
If someone felt strongly enough, given the lack of security on the survey, and the need only to provide an Eircode, with no validation, and with the right computer skills, an algorithm or a bot of some sort could be created to respond to the survey on behalf of every Eircode in the catchment area. Or why stop there, why not the whole country?
The flaws in the survey do not end here – and this where I move into opinion rather than simple fact, not being an expert in data protection. The process for validating the identity of respondents using their Eircodes should raise concerns. The survey FAQs state that:
“If your child is in primary school, we will use your Eircode to match your answers to your child’s primary school. We do this by checking your child’s Eircode with data in the Department of Education and Youth Primary School Online Database.”
“If your child is not yet in primary school, we will use your Eircode to check that there is a young child in your household. We do this by checking your Eircode with data from the Department of Social Protection’s Child Benefit Database.”
Even if the security and the integrity of the survey was assured, it is possible that accessing a family’s data on the Department of Education and Youth Primary School Online Database by the assessors of the survey could trigger data protection concerns and whether consent has been attained to access this data in order to analyse the survey.
It is even more likely that accessing a database outside of the Department of Education, in particular the Department of Social Protection’s Child Benefit Database, risks breaching data protection considerations. General Data Protection Regulations are there to protect individuals’ personal data from illegitimate use and access. It is incumbent upon the Department of Education to explain how this type of access into another Department’s Database is compliant with GDPR and to explain with much greater detail, how the data is being shared, stored, harvested and protected, in the process of analysing the survey. Who sees what?
The simple reality that an anonymous responder, illegitimately filling out the survey on behalf of a random Eircode is possible – and indeed likely – means that personal data can and will be engaged by the Dept of Education not with implied consent that would come with filling the survey in a secure manner, but without any engagement of the person in question at all.
I remain open to correction the data protection concerns that I raise here and it would be useful for the Data Commissioner to be engaged on the subject. This isn’t a minor or a trivial matter. It involves potentially the parents of all 826,000 primary school children in Ireland, as well as primary school staff and board members, and the parents of children yet to start school – up to 300,000 additional children – who may fill out the survey.
David Reynolds