Certain Mayoral candidates and noble civic leaders are jumping up and down about the need for a 'review of the local government postal voting system to restore integrity and minimize the capacity for the postal vote to be abused.' Blerg.

All window dressing and lip service because in the lines of the faux-outrage media statement there's no mention of any practical solutions, such as moving to a digital voting system.

“People might be overseas”. Solution: Get them to vote online.

“People are stealing ballot papers from letterboxes”. Solution: Get them to vote online.

“People are bulk registering voters to one address”. Solution: Get them to vote online.

See the pattern?

If you want to minimize the capacity of the postal vote to be abused, make it digital.

If I want to vote on Supercity I have to have a tree chopped down and paper forms sent out to a thing called a 'letterbox' and then squiggle on it with a inky stick thing called a 'pen' and then put it in a little paper parcel called an 'envelope' and then repeat the process and 'post' it all back again. Assuming nobody flogged my ballot papers or registered me to an address in Taihape.

Human people (that make mistakes) then open the little paper parcel 'envelopes' and read the inky stick squiggles and count the votes and enter it on another piece of paper that gets put into a computer. Then a giant unicorn from Sudan plays swing ball with Roger Federer on a Hero Parade float and the winner uses the anointed swing ball paddle of awesomeness to choose the Super Mayor.

Hard. Way too hard.

The current system doesn't work. Large city council voter participation in New Zealand usually sits around 35%. See also - bugger all.

Yet any mention of a digital voting system results in frowny eyebrows and a glazed look of disinterest from the government dinosaurs.

Digital is fine for banking and share trading and car registration and medical records but voting?! Tut, tut, very frightening and unsafe.

All you get is objections about old people and poor people and Roger Federer not having a computer and the whole thing gets snowballed and we go back to talking about the ratio of club sandwiches to sushi at the lunch break.

If people want to vote on paper, yay for them, but I'm a voter too and I want to vote online.

Better still, let me text in my vote like American Idol. More people have mobile phones than letterboxes. Smart people like Simon Cowell have figured it out.

I'll knock out a Polldaddy now. Problem solved.