The UK government is going to bring forward legislation requiring photo ID in order to vote. They are doing this in order to deal with increasing numbers of allegations of voter fraud. This proposed law is hoped to be enacted in 2023 a year before the next General Election is scheduled to be held.
Personally I believe that this law should have been brought in years ago. After all if I have to show my photo driving licence or my passport to take scrap metal into the scrap metal dealer, then why should I not have to show photo ID in order to vote? It is precisely because Britain has never had photo ID to vote, that we have had so many allegations made in recent years about voting irregularities. According to a report in The Sun newspaper, photo ID will be required for voting in person and there will be new rules to prevent abuse of proxy and postal votes.
Whilst I admit that the number of cases of in person impersonation at physical polling stations is relatively small, I’ve seen figures of less than 100 cases, the postal vote system is ripe for abuse. I hope that these new rules regarding postal and proxy votes remove much of the potential for abuse for it with postal votes where there is the most concern by Britons about abuse. There have been a number of allegations made over the years that in certain areas, mostly Islamised ones like Tower Hamlets, Newham and Redbridge in London, that postal voting has severely damaged the integrity of the voting system. These allegations centre around ‘heads of households’ mostly men, voting for their wives and children or ‘community leaders’ pressuring people to vote for preferred, usually Labour, candidates. Strengthening controls on postal voting as well as requiring photo ID at polling stations will in my view, go a long way to curbing these sorts of abuses.
From reading around the web and various comment sections I find that these new proposals are being broadly welcomed by Britons. After all democratic societies need to have honest and accurate voting systems and I’ve little doubt that the recent furore about postal voting in the USA has probably brought worries about postal voting to the attention of greater numbers of Britons.
The Labour Party seems to be extremely worried about these new proposals. They are starting to scream quite loudly about how these rules will ‘exclude’ people from the democratic process. Labour’s Shadow Minister for Democracy said: “It doesn’t matter how the government dresses it up, these plans will make it harder for working class, older and Black people to vote.”
To that claim I say ‘bullshit’! Nobody will be excluded from honestly voting as this proposed law has within it provisions for those without photo ID to confirm their identity with the local council using other documentation such as library cards or utility bills that they may hold. Methinks that the lady, Cat Smith, doth protest too much. This is because any crackdown on illegal or fraudulent voting will hit Labour the hardest. Labour will no longer be able to rely on the ‘whipped mosque vote’ or fraudulent postal votes or proxy votes gathered in old people’s homes and sheltered accommodation in order to hold onto power in areas where they may be otherwise unpopular as a party.
Personally I’m pretty disgusted at Labour’s racist way of objecting to these proposed changes. Do Labour really believe that members of ethnic minorities are too stupid to apply for a voter ID from their local council? Sadly it seems that this is Labour’s attitude towards ethnic minorities. If I was a member of a visible minority then I’d be pretty pissed off at such a racist attitude towards me from Labour. Labour’s viewpoint on this issue is also pretty demeaning towards older people who are probably quite able in many cases to take a trip to the local council’s offices and apply for a voter ID.
Britain may have a better electoral integrity system than some other nations, but I see no problem at all with making it more secure and more honest than it is already. Personally I think that Labour’s stance on voter ID is a vote loser because it gives the impression that Labour like the current arrangements where someone could, in a home in multiple occupation, steal a voting card and vote in person or manufacture a whole sack load of fraudulent postal votes. On this occasion the Conservative Party is bang on with one of their policies and Labour are left looking like the party of electoral fraud.
good idea however if the system is corrupt it doesnt help. In India you cannot vote without a voter id and your name in the list however people get fake IDS made just because politicians want votes. At the end of the day its all corruption.
This is my only worry about this scheme. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that corrupt or biased council staff in heavily Labour dominated areas (and lets be honest here, fraudulent voting mostly benefits Labour) will issue fake ID’s to friends of members of their own confessional or ethnic community. There will need to be some sort of oversight of these councils in order to prevent this from happening or to minimise it.
I don’t think it’s rare at all!
When I went to vote in a town that begins with L, ends with N and has a T in the middle, there was a black post box in front of me in the queue.
She (well, I assume it was!) was called to one side and was told she had voted already.
Surely this couldn’t have been a one-off coincidence?
Very best wishes,
George.
When I was referring to the rareness of in person impersonation cases I was referring to those where impersonators have been caught and reported. There is the distinct possibility that there are many cases such as the one that you described that although they being caught by polling station staff are not being escalated for prosecution. I think that Voter ID at polling stations would be a brilliant idea but the government needs to tackle the postal vote system as that is where there is much abuse going on. I believe that in a recent election in Peterborough there were suspiciously high numbers of postal votes from ‘enriched’ wards.
Voter ID is a sticking plaster on a broken system and only applies to in-person votes. The biggest problem is the corrupt unverifiable postal votes. Even if signatures are checked, you don’t know who put the cross on the ballot especially in patriarchal communities where women and young people’s votes are filled in by the head of the household, or taken to the mosque or “leaders” place to be filled in en masse. On the other hand we have a huge issue with the university town vote where students tip the political balance overriding the permanent local population.
The first act should be to scrap all postal votes except for the genuinely physically disabled, the armed forces, disparate ex-pats and public services working on that day. Also students should get a postal vote to their home town with enhanced fines for any who try to vote twice.
Proxy votes only allowed for one person if they are disabled or won’t be in the country on the day.
All other must vote at their designated polling station in person, with no person over the age of 10 allowed in the booth at the same time as the voter.
Identity must be shown, either photo ID Driving license, passport or a utility bill, bank statement. with it coded on the polling clerks sheet.
We need to be very careful that this, like the Covid “passport” doesn’t turn into a stealth National Identity Slave Card.
I know this isn’t perfect, but this is the best way we have to minimize voter fraud. You cannot eliminate it completely.
Lastly, the number of votes should be counted as a total, at the polling station with the total noted.
At the count, the total will be counted again for comparison, a small discrepancy is to be expected, but will minimize ballot stuffing.
Postal votes will be counted separately and kept separate on a ward basis in the event of suspected irregularities.
There will be no electronic voting or online ballots due to the opacity of the system and who is controlling the data. Electronic dumb mark reader type counting could be allowed with rejected papers subjected to hand scrutiny.
That’s about as secure as you can get without removing the secrecy.
This is purely an exercise in secure voting and counting and not the actual electoral system and should go a long way to tackling most corruption. It cannot be eliminated in a free society but this would stop the “cultural votes” in their tracks and the rotten boroughs formed in its wake.
I have stood for election and been a borough Councillor so I understand the pitfalls. I also know of several who rely on postal vote chicanery.
The final piece should be greatly increased penalties for impersonation, double voting and ballot fraud, including up to 20yrs in prison for those proven to have knowingly benefitted.
You make some good points there. Whilst photo ID for voting is a damned good idea we must be careful that it doesn’t morph into a national Id card. The major problems are related to postal voting and the answer may well be to restrict postal votes to those who genuinely need them. Whilst photo ID is a good idea for elections and something that I support, I’d be interested to see how the government will propose curbs to abuses or potential abuses to postal votes. I certainly agree with the idea of greater scrutiny of postal votes and keeping records related to individual wards. I also agree with you that electronic voting is a big no no. What bothers me about what I’ve heard about the proposals so far is the involvement of local council staff. Some local council staff will no doubt be bent and there will need to be some oversight to stop this happening. You are also correct that there are less than effective penalties for voting irregularities or benefiting from said irregularities.
A recent article at the Gatestone Institute website seems to indicate that in the US the Democrats are moving to remove any form of voter i/d or verification. Indeed, if we thought our system has holes, the proposals would make even El Presidente of a Banana Republic blush.
“If You Thought the 2020 Elections Were Chaotic, Just Wait”
by J. Christian Adams published 8th February 2021.
ID – OK by me, especially as one must supply NI Number to register to vote
Photo ID – NO, No, no
It’s a fast track to Identity Cards
I’m surprised you don’t realise this
Those without Driving Licenses or Passports are already suffering too much exclusion and obstacles.
Clamp down on the criminals without punishing the innocent
Of course I’m worried about voting ID turning into a defacto ID card, which is something that Home Office civil servants have wanted for decades. Unfortunately there is a need to secure the electoral process and some form of voter ID may be necessary to do that,coupled of course to greater punishments for transgressors. It looks as if the Government is aware that some people may not already have photo ID which is why they are looking at people being able to establish their identity via library cards and utility bills etc.