Our democracy in this country is pretty much broken.
On one hand we have a government that constantly bangs on about the will of the people, whilst simultaneously doing its damnedest to undermining it.
The irony of that is not lost on me.
A Government that actually did care about the will of the people would make sure that the people got the parliament they asked for, for a start, by introducing a proportional system of voting. This is not boring constitutional stuff – we should be doing more to frame it as a fundamental issue of trust.
In recent years, the introduction of individual electoral registration has led to a severe democratic deficit. Just last month, Electoral Commission research showed that 17% of voters were not correctly registered.
That’s not far off one in five people, who are more likely to be young or from marginalised groups – and least likely to vote Conservative.
That is, surely, a much bigger problem than some confected spectre of “voter fraud” which is being used as a justification to bring in this measure.
The Electoral Reform Society has this to say on that subject:
Thankfully electoral fraud is very rare in the UK. Where voter fraud has occurred, it has been isolated and therefore is best tackled locally.
Out of 44.6 million votes cast in 2017, there was one conviction resulting from the 28 allegations of in-person voter fraud – that’s 0.000063%. Adding a major barrier to democratic engagement off the back of this would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
And our Tom Brake said that this measure was a blatant attempt at voter suppression and rig future elections:
The move by the Government to make voter ID compulsory is a thinly-veiled attempt to rig the results of future elections. We know from the pilot back in 2018 that voter fraud was inconsequential, whilst what the pilot did do was turn away a disproportionate number of vulnerable voters.
Boris Johnson is clearly taking a leaf out of Trump’s playbook by using false claims about voter fraud to suppress turnout.
The trial was deemed a waste of time and the public’s money, and this roll-out will be no different. The Conservative Government have already showed disdain for our democracy and this move is simply further confirmation of that.
Rather than electioneering by making it harder to vote, the Conservative Government should be focusing on ways to encourage democratic participation, such as through extending voting rights to 16 year olds.
Again, the Tories are looking to Trump and the US Republicans to give themselves an advantage. They are ignoring much bigger problems with our democracy. Don’t let them get away with it.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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14 Comments
Whilst I tend to agree that the motives behind this sort of measure are suspect and that voter fraud by personation probably isn’t a significant problem (and much less likely to be than postal voting), I wish everyone would stop trotting out this so-called evidence of the one conviction and the 28 complaints as some sort of proof that there’s no problem.
The whole point – or at least, the argument – is that in the absence of any requirement for ID, personation is extremely difficult even to notice, let alone prove. So the lack of prosecutions and convictions doesn’t prove a d. thing.
Every voter has a card from the Electoral Registration Officer. This should be handed in at the polling station. Simples
I agree with Malcolm. The current voting system is all too vulnerable to fraud, and with the high number of repeated non-voters, there is a large pool of votes to be misused. That no large scale fraud has yet been confirmed is no reason for complacency.
Has H.M.G., or any other body, produced indicative figures of the number of citizens likely to be obstructed from voting?
If anyone wants to introduce compulsory photo id then they must be willing to issue it free of charge. There also needs to be a stop being put on insisting on either a passport or a driving licence as the only acceptable forms of id.
@David Becket. What about residences which don’t have their own letter box?
When I was a regular deliverer we enveloped those for shared letter boxes. But I bet the electoral register did not know about shared boxes. OTOH I wonder if the polling station staff might have recognised multiple voters with different names.
How do you prove that someone wanting a free photo ID is who they claim to be. My mother gave up her driving licence and passport but given all bills were in my fathers name how should she prove who she was other than an 80 year old birth certificate if she could find it.
It’s really strange that most democracies have voter ID requirements, but somehow that’s anathema in the UK. Most emerging democracies have them too and also have the mobile ballot box system, where the ballot box is taken to the voter rather than have postal votes.
I have witnessed voter fraud including personation and postal vote fraud and if you think it doesn’t happen then you are plain naive.
Most adults have photo ids such as driving licences and/or passports. Those that don’t can easily get an Age verification identity card. Those are largely used by people needing to prove their age when purchasing alcohol, but they are open to anyone to get.
As both Malcolm Todd and Mick Taylor hint, one source of voting fraud is in the postal vote. In my view, though without any evidence, it is the most serious. As Tony Greaves has argued, except for defined cases such as immobility or absence on business or holiday, voting should be “in person, in secret.” The present blanket availability of postal votes should be severely reduced.
Despite the headlines, most people in this country are trustworthy and law abiding. That is why we don’t need ID verification for voting. We should be aiming for turnouts of over 90% at this pivotal time and to extend the franchise.
@Peter Hirst. It depends where you live. Electoral fraud us much more prevalent when wards are big and anonymous. Believe me it’s much more widespread than you think.
Colleagues need to be aware of the history of the provisions against voting fraud in the Ballot Act 1872, the relevant parts of which are still in force today. Because the United Kingdom did not, and does not, have identity cards, election candidates and/or their agents are entitled to appoint polling agents who are authorised to stand inside the polling station with a copy of the electoral register in order to challenge any person coming to that polling station whom they are aware is not entitled to vote there. It depends on well organised political parties able to recruit local people to do the job, and this is where today’s apathy towards politics is detrimental to our democratic process.
The second key provision is that, if a legitimate voter goes to the polling station and is told by the presiding officer that he or she has already voted, they are still entitled to vote, using what is called a “tendered ballot paper” which is of a different colour. These ballot papers are separated at the count and are not included in the count if the majority for the winning candidate is greater than their total number. If, however, they would alter the result, they are then allocated and counted. If they would still alter the result, the whole election is suspended and goes to the High Court.
Of course, this last provision is exceptionally rare but the point is that our forbears saw the problem and legislated for it 150 years ago. All that is needed is better politics not further legislation. As has been pointed out, it is postal voting that is wide open to fraud. Once the ballot paper is outside the polling station it is insecure. France abolished all postal voting in 1974, saying that it was open to fraud. They have higher election turnouts that we do! IThere, if you cannot get to the polling station, you have to have a proxy vote.