Voter id

[jeremyp]

OK, I knew they were talking about it, but this is the first I've heard of it actually being required.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65272595

Did I miss the campaigns and outrage?

[Outrider]

OK, I knew they were talking about it, but this is the first I've heard of it actually being required.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65272595

Did I miss the campaigns and outrage?

It's gone fairly unchallenged - there were a few pilots, one of them was in Gosport where my father and brother live. Unfortunately it seems that the people who it disenfranchises - typically the younger generations and those in the larger towns and cities - are also amongst the people unlikely to pick up a newspaper or watch broadcast TV, because they've largely ignored it. I've seen a few opinion pieces here and there on the BBC and in the Guardian, but otherwise it seems to have gone through without much fuss.

Once it rinses out at the next elections (the local elections in May, so far as I can tell) then perhaps if it has a significant effect we'll see some anger, but by then it will be established and more difficult to get rid of.

O.

[Udayana]

OK, I knew they were talking about it, but this is the first I've heard of it actually being required.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65272595

Did I miss the campaigns and outrage?

There have been some protests on twitter about the way the IDs allowed favour older people over younger (as seems intended by the legislation as a whole).

That it was felt that such legislation was needed just highlights the anti-social, anti-democratic tendencies and incompetence of the Tories. It won't change anything much but just add to the cost in money and time, to election processes.

[Nearly Sane]

Here's one from earlier


http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=19205.msg852521#msg852521

[ProfessorDavey]

I think one of the issues with its introduction is how easy it will be to make it appear to be a problem.

Effectively I'd be pretty confident that on the 4th May we will have a lot of people with links to formal or informal protests who will simply pitch up at the polling station without ID and be turned away. This will be all over twitter, other social media and the mainstream media. And people will ask the obvious question - is the solution worse than the problem it was supposed to fix.

Now I'd imagine with a new process all polling stations will need to record the exact number of people turned away due to not having ID - so we will have those numbers, and we already have numbers on ID fraud, based on people turning up legitimately to vote to find they've already 'voted'. We know that number is tiny, so almost certainly the number turned away as they don't have ID will dwarf the number who couldn't vote due to ID fraud.

It really is a solution looking for a problem.

[SteveH]

It's a solution in search of a problem*: electoral fraud at the polling station is practically unknown. It is also a transparent attempt by the Tories to bias the result. Anyway, I've got my voter id certificate ready. I'm not going to let the bastard Tory bastards prevent me doing my bit to help kick them out of office at the next general election!
*As Prof D said, a few seconds before I posted.

[ProfessorDavey]

Here you go:

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/our-views-and-research/our-research/electoral-fraud-data/2022-electoral-fraud-data

So in the 2022 elections there were just 7 alleged incidences of so-called 'personation' (The offence of personation involves someone pretending to be someone else so they can use that person’s vote) - in every case when investigated there was no further action because there was no evidence or insufficient evidence.

Remind me again what the issue is we are trying to fix!

[ProfessorDavey]

It is also a transparent attempt by the Tories to bias the result. Anyway, I've got my voter id certificate ready.

Here's what I said on the other thread:

"I'm not sure that is true and I'm sure somewhere I saw research suggesting that the people most likely not to have ID are the very elderly, those that no longer drive and have a passport that has lapsed as they no longer travel much.

Actually my experience is that young people tend to have ID and tend to have it on them, as they need it to get into bars etc. I virtually never have photo ID on me, my 24 and 21 year old kids always do."

So it is quite possible that the people most impacted may be those who either do not have ID or don't routinely carry ID, and that might just be tory voters rather than non-tory ones.

What is blatant however is the bias in acceptable ID - so the elderly are able to use bus pass type ID but the young aren't. The most blatant being London Oyster 60+ and 18+ cards - the former accepted, the latter not

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voter-id-list-gives-few-options-for-younger-voters/