The Government appears to be keen to increase voter turnout at elections and has tried various ways of doing this short of making voting (or, rather, attendence at the Polling Station) compulsory. Thus, we have had trials of telephone and internet voting, making postal votes available on demand and experiments in all postal votes.

It's easy to see why Labour wants to get turnout up since those groups least likely to vote, the young and the working class are, or at least believed, to be more likely to support Labour than the other mainstream parties. Added to that partisan reason for wanting a high turnout is the idea from democratic theory that a result is more legitimate if sanctified by the participation of as many voters as possible. So, what's the problem with these new ways to increase turnout?

My objections are both on practical grounds and on principle. As the Electoral Commission have reported, there are significant security fears associated with telephone and internet voting. As the last European elections showed, postal ballots also have difficulties - mostly warehouses of supporters of one party or another filling in votes by the box full. In addition, now that postal votes can be obtained on request, what's to stop me if I were a patriarchal head-of-the household type from standing over my wife and daughters and making sure that they voted the right way? Whatever measures the Commission may propose to make the situation better with postal votes, there's no getting away from the fact that a vote in this manner happens in the privacy of the home and it's rather difficult for the state to oversee what happens behind the closed door of the family home.

The final practical objection to mass postal voting is that it shortens the election campaign. Postal votes are typically returned some days before actual polling day meaning that those voters have no opportunity to react to events in the last few days of the campaign that might alter their voting intention. I'm sure you can all think of your own favourite scandal fantasy here but more seriously, would Asnar have lost the Spanish election if it had been all postal vote?

Moving on to arguments of principle, it seems to me that voting is becoming regarded by politicians as much as by some members of the public, not as a democratic duty but as an imposition on peoples' time or as a lifestyle or comsumer choice. Thus we get arguments about having polling stations at your nearest Tesco for example. More generally, there is the idea that voting should be as 'convenient' as possible for the voter, almost that it shouldn't require any effort or more worryingly, any thought.

I ask, why not? Why should elections not demand effort from the voters? An election is a serious business. A general election brings about the national government for the next four to five years with wide ranging powers that affect everyone's lives for good or ill in very real and significant ways. Is it unreasonable to ask people to take a little effort in discharging what is, arguably, their most important duty in a society that wishes to be regarded as democratic? And anyhow, is it really inconvenient to go to the polling station and vote any time you like between 7am and 10pm? The state must ensure that there are enough polling stations so that people don't have far to go, for sure, but for most folk a walk to the polling station and back can be done in half an hour. Half an hour every four or five years. It's a small ask.

Obviously postal votes should be available to those who can demonstrate a need for one as used to be the case. But for the rest of us, voting should be seen as a serious duty to be done in a serious and sober manner and seen as a service to our collective selves as the demos, properly gathered together for one day in four years. That is our power; that is our duty.