Scrap Voter ID when Parliament returns on Monday
Commenting on today’s warning from the Local Government Association not to underestimate the difficulties Voter ID will cause for local authorities, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:
Today’s warning on voter ID from the LGA shows the Conservative Government cannot bury their heads in the sand any longer. This is a national scandal that could end in a disaster for our democracy.
The Government must urgently back my Liberal Democrat Bill which would end these regulations swiftly in the three weeks left before polling day.
The moment Parliament returns on Monday, the Government must cancel the Voter ID measures before too many people lose their voice in this year’s local elections.
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27 Comments
Might it be that voter I D is less a matter of putting heads in sand and more a matter of anti-democratic cheating by excluding those who are likely not to vote Conservative and the like?
Might our party call vote cheating what it really is?
Every country in Europe has voter ID except the UK. The problem isn’t voter ID per se, it’s the way the government has chosen to limit the options people have in giving voter ID. I have seen voter personation in Leeds and there are pink ballot papers issued there regularly. I simply don’t believe the problem is unique to Leeds. That there are few prosecutions doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. I don’t share the blinkered total opposition to voter ID of the Lib Dems. My late wife almost certainly lost an election in Leeds due to personation, so please stop pretending there isn’t voter fraud, there is.
What we should be doing on Monday is widening the proof that people can show so that no-one is unable to vote, but election cheats can be stopped.
Bureaucratically difficult in the time scale, so perhaps for the future. But how about everyone registered with a current address being sent a postal vote, unless they opt out in advance.
@Mick Taylor
“I have seen voter personation in Leeds”
Please tell us (no names) exactly what you saw.
@Adrian Sanders
Postal votes by default – what if the voter has just moved and not updated their electoral register details yet? And someone else picks up the postal vote paperwork and uses it (OK they’d need to know the voter d.o.b. and be able to erplicate their signature).
And aren’t there more successful prosecutions for postal vote fraud than for polling station fraud?
I saw gangs of Labour students knocking up and it soon became clear they were looking for people who were NOT voting and then sending someone to vote instead. I checked after the election and found that tendered ballot papers had been issued. We failed to win the polling district we had walked before.
Voters in Northern Ireland appear perfectly able to cope with having to show ID to vote so there is no reason why it should not also work in the rest of the UK.
Well said, Mick,
Your experience of personation in Leeds matches my own in East London during the 1980s. I also found examples where people who had moved out of the area were being personated; a colleague and I successfully challenged the retention of over a thousand names of those who had moved away at least a year before and were still on the Voters Register at their former address, and were recorded as having voted. I suspect that systematic personation in British elections is not the rarity which many people believe it is, sadly. So asking for voter ID should help, although I agree that the way it’s being handled in Britain is abysmal.
@Rif Winfield
At least you did something about it – good.
“asking for voter ID should help, although I agree that the way it’s being handled in Britain is abysmal.”
Quite.
On the Northern Ireland issue – from https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmniaf/131/13106.htm#a19
“Electoral process issues
THE REQUIREMENT FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC ID
56. Under the provisions of the 2002 Act, voters are able to cast their vote only once they have produced photographic ID. The forms of ID accepted are valid UK and EU passports, photographic senior SmartPasses, a valid photographic UK driving license, or an Electoral Identity Card (EIC). The EIC was introduced in the 2002 Act, and is available free of charge to all voters who request one.
57. Voters may indicate on their electoral registration forms if they wish to apply for the Card. In the first annual canvass under the new system in the autumn of 2002, 235,000 electors indicated that they required an EIC. However, by July 2004, only 93,000 people had applied for and received one.[69] The discrepancy between these figures has given rise to speculation that large numbers of people in Northern Ireland are effectively disenfranchised because of a lack of appropriate photographic ID……….”
I’ll post some more separately if I can…
Continuing from above…
“58. When giving evidence to the Committee in July 2004, the Electoral Commission as well as the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland (EONI) indicated that the numbers of people without some form of appropriate photographic ID were likely to be relatively low.[70] In its report on the 2002 Act published in December 2003, the Electoral Commission estimated that some 37,000 voters who are on the electoral register do not have the appropriate photographic ID required to vote. At that time, the Commission indicated that every effort needed to be made to increase the take-up of the ID card.[71]
59. In trying to explain the discrepancy between the number who had indicated an interest in getting an EIC in 2002 and the actual application rate for the card, the Electoral Office told us that:
“…there were 235,000 people who ticked the box on the 2002 registration form, and we simply believe that many of those people ticked the box but when they got the application form which explained they could use a driving licence, passport or translink senior smart pass, they realised they did not perhaps need it. We believe that there is not a huge demand over and above the 90,000 odd that we have produced.”[72]
60. Meanwhile, between 3,500 and 4,000 voters were rejected at polling stations during the November 2003 Assembly elections and the June 2004 European Parliament elections. About half were rejected because their ID, for example, passport or driving licence was out of date.[73] This is not a significant number in the view of the Electoral Office.[74]
Last one…
“61. We believe that the introduction of a requirement for voters to show photographic ID at polling stations was right and has been modestly successful. However, a number of voters were unable to cast their votes in the 2003 Assembly and 2004 European Parliament elections because they lacked appropriate ID. This consequence is unfortunate and we recommend that efforts to increase the uptake of the Electoral Identity Card should be redoubled. Campaigns to remind voters of the requirement for photographic ID need to be repeated regularly, particularly ahead of elections.”
Postal votes are a much bigger problem. The main problem there is not organised fraud but coercion, generally a head of household ensuring that everyone in the house votes their way. With inter-generational conflict increasing and young people finding it increasingly difficult to move out of their parents’ homes this is a growing problem.
There is also a problem with dementia sufferers voting by post without knowing it.
Voter ID will inevitably increase the take-up of postal votes.
I’m in favour of presenting some sort of ID to vote in person, as voter fraud is more widespread than the few prosecutions suggest. I agree with Mick and Rif.
It’s also common practice in other European countries.
However, there is an important difference: in Spain, France etc, every adult citizen has and always carries an identity card. hence, there’s no difficulty presenting photographic ID to vote.
But in the UK, we don’t have ID cards.
But why should the identity presented be PHOTOGRAPHIC? A debit or credit card or library card or membership card of a club will have the voters’ name on it. Likewise, a statement from a utility company or bank would serve the same purpose and will almost entirely eliminate the possibility of fraud.
There are an awful lot of people who could produce a credit card with the name Peter Davies on it.
Hello Peter,
What percentage of the UK is called Peter Davies?
@Chris Moore
Depending on the name it mightn’t be difficult to find several people with the same name in one polling district. A name just isn’t anywhere near enough to id one person.
@chris Moore – the photo links the document to the person presenting the document. The utility bill simply confirms the address on the id card is reasonably current.
What is interest is that out-of-date documents (passports, driving licence) are acceptable, as long as the photo is still recognisably you. This potentially means the elderly, will be able to vote.
I suggest the driving licence is the defacto id. card in the uk. Give it another decade and it most probably morph into an official id. card.
The idea is to make it far more difficult to impersonate.
You would now need to co-opt a person with the same name. This to fake one vote. Much more oneroud.
Obviously, if you also had to present a bank or credit card statement with the address on, this eliminates that loophole.
Any other sort of official document with name and address should be enough.
Roland, all these forms of identity should be ok.
Photo ID: clearly fine.
Credit card or utility bill with name and address: that is manifestly good enough.
Not everyone has a form of photo ID.
In all the fuss over Photo ID, everyone is ignoring another issue in the same Act. Henceforth, anyone with a permanent postal vote will have to renew them every three years. Someone who has a permanent postal vote for medical reasons, like my late wife who suffered from one of the rarer forms of dementia with symptoms like those of motor neurone disease, could be disenfranchised by this new Act, yet amongst all the concerns from our Parliamentarians about PhotoID, I have heard nothing about the changes to postal vote entitlement.
The government is trying to prevent or at least discourage large numbers of people from voting. And nobody on this thread seems troubled by that. Do we just take it for granted now that the people in power are no longer committed to democratic norms and values?
@Andrew – I think many do understand that. However, we do need to “ nip in the bud” voting fraud before it becomes more widespread and “normal” in some groups.
@chris – agree that is the case currently. However, many things are much easier with photo id. Ie. passport and driving licence. Certainly getting my teenagers on school trips, bank accounts, access to e-scooters, under 25 id etc. is much easier once you have these documents. Perhaps we need to provide assistance for less well off families to get these documents. Interestingly, the government did put into the defunct child trust fund sufficient monies (then) to cover such costs at todays prices…
Anyone with a laser printer could knock up a few hundred bank statements.
A few hundred?!
With entries for a whole month from retailers and banks and transfers to Granny?
A major deterrent, don’t you think?
@Andrew: I, personally, think the government have bad motives; I’m sure others agree. But staring that over and over again is a bit limited.
The idea is not to be foolproof in a theoretical sense; but to allow forms of identity that don’t exclude, but also deter cheating.
I meant, ….don’t exclude voters from voting, but do deter cheating.
With 11 million people with no or incorrect registration voter ID must be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It is not sufficient to reverse this bill. We need to campaign for automatic voter registration that is compulsory. You don’t need to vote but you do need to be registered.
@Peter Hirst
“You don’t need to vote but you do need to be registered.”
Isn’t that the law anyway?
https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/electoral-register
“The law makes it compulsory to provide information to an electoral registration officer for inclusion in the full register. The details you are likely to have to provide are your name, address, national insurance number, nationality and age.”
From https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/voters-id-election-polling-b2331700.html
“Senior Conservatives have expressed concern that even voters with photo ID risk being turned away from polling booths if new rules are strictly applied at local elections on Thursday.
Former cabinet ministers urged staff manning polling stations to be “flexible” when judging a likeness against old photographs……
Senior Tories urged officials to show leeway if there is a disparity between a voter’s picture and their current appearance.
Former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Polling staff should be sensible and flexible. Personation is very rare and I would have thought even less likely with an expired passport of whatever vintage.””
Well they said it! “Personation is very rare”