Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
Exactly.
It's a fact that older people are more likely to vote Conservative.
This Government is now so desperate that they are even prepared to interfere with the democratic process eg young persons bus passes weren't acceptable ID, but elderly persons bus passes were.
Having worked in various positions both for different political parties and the official Electoral Registration Office, voter fraud is not a major issue in the UK.
From memory, last year in the whole of the UK there were just six cases of alleged voter fraud. After investigate, just two were put forward for prosecution.
People are unlikely to risk getting into serious trouble for the benefit of another person, especially where one extra vote for them is extremely unlikely to sway the final outcome.
A far bigger problem is encouraging people to take part in the electoral process and, after they've made the effort to go to a polling station, being denied the right to vote is hardly going to encourage them to make the effort again.
My belief is that, like in Australia, everyone should ve required to vote in most circumstances. However, an option 'None of the above' should be provided.
An unofficial way to do this already exists by deliberately spoiling the ballot paper. The vest way to do this to help counting staff is to put one big cross over the entire paper.
This way the vote is counted, but not attributed to any person/party.
|
You cannot measure the scale of a problem by reference to the number of prosecutions. For example, look at the number of rapes that are reported and then look at the prosecution rate - it is pretty dire by any measure.
Nobody knows the number of people who used the votes of others before this new arrangement was introduced because there were no checks.
It is easy to get ID from the council if you don’t have a passport, driving licence, concessionaire bus pass, etc. The only real reason this is an issue is that it stops people from committing fraud at the ballot box - a crime that probably benefited Labour.