Re: Charlie Farley
 

If you have an ID card from an EEA member state, that includes Norway and Iceland (and Lichtenstein in fact), whose citizens are not entitled to vote in any UK election because they are not in the EU. I don’t imagine Norwegians and Iclanders are queueing up to vote illegally in the UK but nevertheless, if the idea is only to accept ID that is obtainable by UK or EU citizens, anything you can get with an EEA ID would have to be excluded.

It may well be that they’ve used a sledgehammer to crack a nut here. I’m not minded to try to defend the whole bureaucratic edifice, except from the ludicrous charge of voter suppression that has got certain sections of the commentariat fulminating.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

A firearms licence is much harder to obtain, yet you cannot use that ....

Re: Charlie Farley
 

Does Charlie need photo id? Do not care just wonder where the topic went hahaha

Re: Charlie Farley
 

https://www.electoralcommission.org....ral-fraud-data

2022 Electoral Fraud Data

Doesn't seem to be much of an issue.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

But the picture above, and the Electoral Commission website, state that

https://www.electoralcommission.org....B&gclsrc=aw.ds

Whilst the shouts of "voter suppression" are a little over-stated, one has to ask why the 16-25 railcard, 25-30 railcard, and University Student ID were turned down by the Conservatives?

Re: Charlie Farley
 

Because they have realised that the18-25 age group aren't likely to vote in their favour so are making it as hard as possible for them to cast their vote would seem to be the obvious conclusion.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

Well to be fair, across the 6 polling stations I was looking after there were maybe a couple of people who were unable to produce the correct ID. The turnout seemed down but that could be due to many reasons.

I think the new system is trying to do two things at once and is a bit lacking at both. The electoral role already reflects who is eligible to vote in a particular election (the eligibility criteria Hugh posted above) with voters being crossed out as appropriate, so why the additional checks? There were some ID check anomalies where the the election office made the ultimate decision which made the staff say hey-ho!


I voted by post and there seemed no requirement for me to prove who I was, the process was the same as it's been for years.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

I simply think that needing ID to vote is wrong. It means "we don't trust you" but there is no evidence of wide scale abuse of trust.
I view the forms of ID accepted more as entitlement devices that can be used for ID.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

The process does come across as reminiscent of the more cynical approach to politics that we've seen since 2016. The fact that Parliament rejected the House of Lords amendment to widen the range of IDs voters could use only reinforces this.

I've yet to read a compelling argument for the ID approach but I'm willing to be proved wrong on this.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

If only as much effort was put in to aligning the rules to make the number of times someone can vote consistent across the different elections - something that causes confusion for voters and polling station staff every election.

Re: Voter ID
 

Re: Charlie Farley
 

Seems reasonable to me, even matt Hancock admitted there were only 6 possible voter fraud cases at the last election yet the solution to this non existant problem is to deny millions of poorer, younger, more ethnic people their right to vote, it's not ludicrous, it's an attack on democracy

Re: Charlie Farley
 

My guess is that what they’re actually after is ‘family voting’ which is prevalent in certain ethnic communities in certain metropolitan areas that typically vote Labour. In that sense they’re trying to tackle something that is illegal, but by its nature goes largely unreported. Given the racial aspect to it they couldn’t say out loud that that’s what they’re doing.

Obviously that would explain why they’re doing voter ID, not why they’ve devised such an exceptionally complex proof-of-ID system to go with it.

Re: Voter ID
 

A passport is harder to get. My first passport in 1999, all I needed was a neighbour or friend to sign my photo. My new passport, 2022, I had to get someone with a passport and they had to be on the photo referee list. But once you get a new british passport, you can use it to get a photo ID driving licence, national entitlement card, YOTI, etc.

Re: Charlie Farley
 

Nonsense. If fraud was that easily noticeable, then they wouldn't try it. The FACT that people have been caught by ACCIDENT(ie NOT investigation) shows that it can and DOES go undetected.