英國工黨政府推廣通訊投票之轉折（2000－2007）

Postal Voting Reform under the Blair Government, 2000-2007

1997年英國工黨重新執政，隨即推動系列政治改革，改進投票方式不久成為改革的重點之一，也是這篇論文探討的主題。投票率走低的趨勢是西歐國家過去幾十年來共同的問題，工黨政府將提高投票率視為健全民主發展的目標。布萊爾政府希望藉由增加投票的便利性，以提升投票率。工黨政府於2000年取消通訊投票的條件限制，允許申請式通訊投票（postal voting on demand），即選民不需附據理由即可申請，使通訊投票成為投票方式的一種，同時也在地方選舉進行不同投票方法的測試。本文從2000年工黨政府積極推動投票改革為起點，探討其如何從申請式通訊投票，試圖逐步在地方選舉推動全面性通訊投票（all postal voting），後因2004年發生選舉舞弊事件，再轉回申請式通訊投票的過程。本文同時分析英國選民日漸喜愛通訊投票，對英國選舉的影響。

After returning to power in 1997, the Blair government began to pursue a series of political reforms. Before long, improving the postal voting system became a key focus.Voter turnouts had been falling throughout Western Europe for several decades, and the Labour government regarded the raising of turnouts as a way to develop a healthy democracy. The Blair government hoped to achieve this by making it easier to vote. In 2000, the Labour government eliminated various restrictions on postal voting by allowing postal voting on demand. From this time forward, postal voting became one of the possible ways to vote, and pilot schemes were carried out at the local level to test different voting methods.The present article will focus on the Labour government's active efforts from the year 2000 to reform the voting system. I will examine how the government introduced postal voting on demand, and then attempted to gradually introduce all-postal voting in local elections before reverting to postal voting on demand after the occurrence of voting fraud in 2004.The present paper also analyzes how increasing public support in the UK for postal voting is affecting elections there.