The end of Free and Fair Elections in the UK. A dark day.

Most of the world requires photo ID to vote. We're very much the significant exception to the rule.

Most of the world has photo ID as a default. I've been abroad where you can be cautioned for not having an ID card whilst out shopping. Do you want that too?
 
Only residents of UK who live here work here, study here or claim benefits here should be voting in our elections imho

Why should someone who has made a new life for themselves in Paris, Benidorm, Singapore, New York, Sydney or wherever have a say where our UK tax money is spent?

Got it.. So basically you want to disenfranchise certain demographics of voters but are using the excuse of 'postal voter fraud' to try and have it achieved.. Thanks for the clarification..
 
Oh, really?

How is your turnout, then? Are there punishments, like fines, if you don't vote?

I wish voting was compulsory here, maybe more people might actually be politically engaged then instead of just being apathetic.

Apparently turnout was 92% in the last election and there are fines if you don't have a good reason to vote:

The penalty for first time offenders is $20, and this increases to $50 if you have previously paid a penalty or been convicted of this offence. If you do not have a valid and sufficient reason for not voting, you can pay the penalty and that will end the matter.

 
Only residents of UK who live here work here, study here or claim benefits here should be voting in our elections imho

Why should someone who has made a new life for themselves in Paris, Benidorm, Singapore, New York, Sydney or wherever have a say where our UK tax money is spent?
Which will give foreign citizens (ie non Irish, non Commonwealth) who are resident in the UK the right to vote in General Elections
 
How is your turnout, then? Are there punishments, like fines, if you don't vote?
Yes there are fines if you don't have a valid reason not to vote. I think it is only $100 but they do go through things and actually fine people. It is also compulsory to register on the electoral roll and with registers of births and deaths they always know how many (and let's face it names etc) of those who haven't enrolled. Definitely know the details of those enrolled and didn't vote..

It has been compulsory since 1918. A few attempts to make it voluntary but not successful


Turnouts are there too - even compares a few years to the UK. We sit around 95% and haven't dropped below 90% since compulsory voting was introduced over 100 years ago.

(it should be noted we have a very different voting system. It isn't one voter, one vote as in the number of people you can vote for. We use a preference system so if there are 18 candidates I can put a number 1 against my most preferred and work down to number 18. Those preferences are quite critical at counting time since the people and/or parties can do deals to take the preferences of others. I'm always amazed we get a result on election day let alone the same week :) )

All good information to keep on topic - IDs to prove you are who you say you are at an election are not intended to do any of the things the (conservative/Conservative proponents say they are for.
 
Quoted wrong post - sorry
 
Apparently turnout was 92% in the last election and there are fines if you don't have a good reason to vote:

The penalty for first time offenders is $20, and this increases to $50 if you have previously paid a penalty or been convicted of this offence. If you do not have a valid and sufficient reason for not voting, you can pay the penalty and that will end the matter.

That is a State (Western Australia) election. We like to have lots of governments here :). There are 5 States (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia) which each have two houses, one lower and one upper, of Parliament. Plus one State (Queensland) where in 1859 the upper house abolished itself so there is only one there. Plus two Territories (Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory - which is Canberra it's entirety) each of which has one house of Parliament.

I was talking about the Federal election which is for the two houses that sit in Canberra and do the federal stuff - defence, immigration and many other things. We vote for the Senators in the upper house here - it isn't like the House of Lords over there. Of course to add to the complication we don't vote for the whole of the upper house at every election - sometimes (like this time) only half of them.

Federal is where this ID stuff came up recently.
 
Only residents of UK who live here work here, study here or claim benefits here should be voting in our elections imho

Why should someone who has made a new life for themselves in Paris, Benidorm, Singapore, New York, Sydney or wherever have a say where our UK tax money is spent?
But foreign nationals who live and pay tax in the Uk don’t get a vote in the general elections? So you believe they should ? Maybe the government should look into this, seems fair
 
But foreign nationals who live and pay tax in the Uk don’t get a vote in the general elections? So you believe they should ? Maybe the government should look into this, seems fair

Like how they allowed EU citizens who were residents to vote in the Brexit referendum along with citizens of the Commonwealth.. Oh hang on a minute...
 
Doh!

Before you start​

It costs £34 to apply online. You can pay by MasterCard, Visa, Electron or Delta debit or credit card.
You’ll need:
  • an identity document, such as your passport
  • addresses where you’ve lived for up to the last 3 years
You might be asked for additional information, such as your National Insurance number if you know it.
You’ll get a confirmation email from DVLA after you’ve applied.
Your licence should arrive within one week if you apply online. It may take longer if DVLA need to make additional checks.


It's all getting a bit complicated just to save some money.
They really do want to disenfranchise some people, don't they?

It's over 45 years since I had my provisional license and I don't remember having to provide any sort of ID ( not that I'd have had much at 17!) so it's obviously changed an awful lot since then.
 
Does seem that voter photo ID has already been in force in Northern Ireland for years - any NI people got experiance of that?
I think compulsory voter ID has been the case here for nearly 20 years now. Prior to this there were often reports of voter impersonation (forged NHS cards were the apparently common use behind voter fraud) in some places, but since photo ID was introduced for elections such claims/prosecutions have fallen like a stone. It's all pretty uncontroversial over here, almost everyone accepts that to have the right to vote you need to give reasonable proof of whom you are at a polling station. In saying that, when the voter photo ID was being introduced, the Electoral Office of Northern Ireland (EONI) went all around the place to allow people whom didn't otherwise have a valid photo ID to apply for an "electoral card" - when I was young and didn't have a driving licence or passport, the local EONI visited the local community centre for a day for people to come & apply for an electoral card, free of charge. Everything was handled on the day in a matter of minutes, including a photo being taken and I got my card in the post about a week later. Outside of voting for elections, the card could (and still can in at least some cases) be used as a valid photo ID where one was nominally required, at least in NI - in my case this included opening a new bank account and traveling between NI & GB (though not good enough to prove my age in pubs in Liverpool & Manchester!). These days all the regional EONI offices are now closed so if you live in or work in or around Belfast you can apply for an electoral card at their head office in Belfast, otherwise you need to make a postal application - details in the link below.


Personally, I reckon that the idea of some sort of quasi-national ID card on a limited basis would in principle be a good idea, at least in the sense of a public services access card & a travel document that can allow passport-free travel in some foreign countries (like it is with citizen ID cards in some mainland European countries). However I would be worried about the potential for regulatory creep by both the government of the day that would introduce such a scheme and by potential future governments, not to mention the issue of privacy concerns particularly in limiting info connected to such ID on being no more than a "need to know" basis for whomever has access. In some continental European countries there are strong privacy protections both on a broad social basis as well as baked into laws & written constitutions that make introducing more overreaching access difficult if not as good as impossible - unfortunately in the UK with its unwritten constitution and doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty where coalition governments are the exception rather than the norm (and so no governing partners to tell others to back the hell off) there are much less such protections & I don't have any trust in either a Conservative or Labour government not to make such overreach on the basis of either flimsy evidence, like weak claims of "national security", or looking to sell off/allow paid access to potentially confidential information to non-government bodies. The Lib Dems? Maybe, they tend to take such things at least half seriously, but I don't think we're going to see them in a majority government any time soon.
 
I've just read that for the 2 million people in the UK without a form of photo ID, they are giving free voter ID cards. Doesn't that mean the main challenge of the poorest not being able to or other people not wanting to pay for photo ID a non issue?

The main potential issue I see is the one of data.
 
I've just read that for the 2 million people in the UK without a form of photo ID, they are giving free voter ID cards. Doesn't that mean the main challenge of the poorest not being able to or other people not wanting to pay for photo ID a non issue?

The main potential issue I see is the one of data.
How many will actually go through the process of getting the ID? It's a extra, unnecessary barrier that will affect all future elections.

If the Tories didn't think it would help them skew the results, they wouldn't be doing it.
 
I've just read that for the 2 million people in the UK without a form of photo ID, they are giving free voter ID cards. Doesn't that mean the main challenge of the poorest not being able to or other people not wanting to pay for photo ID a non issue?

The main potential issue I see is the one of data.
How do you prove someone is entitled to free voter id? Will they have to produce photo ID?
 
I assume they'll do it like they did in Northern Ireland as detailed above by 2wo Thir3s.
Which doesn't say how you prove your entitlement
 
How many will actually go through the process of getting the ID? It's a extra, unnecessary barrier that will affect all future elections.

If the Tories didn't think it would help them skew the results, they wouldn't be doing it.
If someone can't be bothered to get the free id to prevent direct or accusations of fraud during an election, then I would say it's more of a them problem.
 
How do you prove someone is entitled to free voter id? Will they have to produce photo ID?
Apparently there are 2 million people who are able to prove who they are without voter ID currently. I would imagine they would use one of the current methods they prove who they are to get this voter ID card.
 
If someone can't be bothered to get the free id to prevent direct or accusations of fraud during an election, then I would say it's more of a them problem.
No, it's a problem for democracy if politicians invent spurious ways to discourage certain sections of the public not to vote.
 
No, it's a problem for democracy if politicians invent spurious ways to discourage certain sections of the public not to vote.
Have other countries also invented these "spurious ways" to discourage their citizens to vote?

It really feels like such an insignificant issue that's being blown out of proportion. People can literally get these ID cards for free, if they don't want to, then that's their choice.
 
Have other countries also invented these "spurious ways" to discourage their citizens to vote?

It really feels like such an insignificant issue that's being blown out of proportion. People can literally get these ID cards for free, if they don't want to, then that's their choice.

With no more than 45 cases of voting irregularities in any major election over the last decade (less than half being actual voter fraud), I think the idea that needing to produce photo ID to tackle voter fraud is being blown out of proportion.

I don’t believe the Government have confirmed how these free IDs will be issued, or funded, yet, but the simple matter of adding an additional step before voting can’t be seen as anything more than a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult.
 
With no more than 45 cases of voting irregularities in any major election over the last decade (less than half being actual voter fraud), I think the idea that needing to produce photo ID to tackle voter fraud is being blown out of proportion.

I don’t believe the Government have confirmed how these free IDs will be issued, or funded, yet, but the simple matter of adding an additional step before voting can’t be seen as anything more than a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult.
Which is why I put "or accusations of fraud during an election" in post #143. I think the US is testament to how unfounded fraud allegations can taint an election process.
 
I don't know what the US has done, but to clarify, I mean known democratic and fair countries that have a requirement for ID cards in order to vote. Does that mean that the ID card laws there are also "spurious" and undemocratic?
 

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