Voter ID

[strichener]

2 hours ago, GordonS said:

How it is handled depends on the stage at which it's challenged and what the challenge is for. There would be an investigation, and each ballot paper has to have a number on the back that matches with the marked-up register - that's the list you see them looking up when you go to vote, and on which they write the number and score out your name when they give you your ballot papers. They can use that to check the vote was cast by the person listed. These cases do happen, usually when someone turns up to vote and gets told they've already voted, but they are fantastically rare. I've never known one to affect the outcome of an election.

The Electoral Commission has done stacks of work on voter fraud at every election for quite a long time now and the evidence is that it's miniscule. It's in the nature of the UK electoral systems that it's incredibly easy to cheat a small number of voters, but pretty much impossible to do it in a systematic way and not get caught. It's because it's so low-tech that it's very secure.

The two main ways are personation - where you turn up at the polling place and claim to be someone else - and postal votes. The system for PVs has been tightened and you couldn't have multiple PVs going to one address without it getting flagged up by the council.

I don't know the circumstances of the other countries that use voter ID so I couldn't comment. They use it in Northern Ireland where there's a solid justification for it, obviously. Some may just be suppressing their vote too, I don't know.

You're 100% bang on though - it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Genuinely curious as to what the solid justification in NI is that doesn't apply to the rest of the UK.  If anything I would have expected NI voting to require less identification.

[tamthebam]

20 years ago Tony Blair was very keen on introducing ID cards and it was the Tories and Lib Dems who were agin it at the time.

Anyway the Tories are doing fine without voter ID at the moment (unless it's a way of bolstering their vote in Scotland)

[Dawson Park Boy]

Just now, tamthebam said:

20 years ago Tony Blair was very keen on introducing ID cards and it was the Tories and Lib Dems who were agin it at the time.

Anyway the Tories are doing fine without voter ID at the moment (unless it's a way of bolstering their vote in Scotland)

The point you’re making about it helping one side or another is just wrong.

It should be a fair, transparent and legitimate system.

Presumably, the Electoral Commision will be involved.

 

[Granny Danger]

Thank Christ for this, I had writer’s cramp this election.

#both8,647 votes SNP

[madwullie]

3 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

The point you’re making about it helping one side or another is just wrong.

It should be a fair, transparent and legitimate system.

Presumably, the Electoral Commision will be involved.

 

What, is it unfair, opaque and illegitimate just now? In what ways? 

[Dawson Park Boy]

1 minute ago, madwullie said:

What, is it unfair, opaque and illegitimate just now? In what ways? 

The poster I was responding to suggested that there were advantages in a new system with voter ID.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

This is straight from the Republican playbook.

This has nothing to with voter fraud which is not an issue if you look at the numbers of cases of voter impersonation.

It's about disenfranchising the poorest in society who may not have a passport or driver licence.

[GordonS]

21 minutes ago, strichener said:

Genuinely curious as to what the solid justification in NI is that doesn't apply to the rest of the UK.  If anything I would have expected NI voting to require less identification.

"Vote early, vote often" was an actual catchphrase in Ireland.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/news-analysis-farewell-to-the-old-irish-custom-of-voting-early-voting-often-134091.html

[Dunfermline Don]

"If I am ever asked,” Boris Johnson once wrote of ID cards, “on the streets of London, or in any other venue, public or private, to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am, when I have done nothing wrong and am simply ambling along and breathing God’s fresh air like any other freeborn Englishman, then I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded I produce it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/11/johnson-civil-libertarian-voter-id-card-fraud-tories?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Is this the same Boris Johnson who would rather ‘die in a ditch’ and assured the DUP that there will be no border in the Irish Sea!

[Dunfermline Don]

"If I am ever asked,” Boris Johnson once wrote of ID cards, “on the streets of London, or in any other venue, public or private, to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am, when I have done nothing wrong and am simply ambling along and breathing God’s fresh air like any other freeborn Englishman, then I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded I produce it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/11/johnson-civil-libertarian-voter-id-card-fraud-tories?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Is this the same Boris Johnson who would rather ‘die in a ditch’ and assured the DUP that there will be no border in the Irish Sea!

[madwullie]

8 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

The poster I was responding to suggested that there were advantages in a new system with voter ID.

The system itself doesn't need to be corrupt for it to favour one party or another - just the implementation of it is enough.

If its difficult to get the cards, or expensive, or you don't trust the government, or a million other reasons why you might not want to have to carry papers with you to vote - well if that "type" of person tends to not to vote for one particular party, then that party will benefit simply from this being implemented, no matter how fair, transparent and legitimate it is. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by madwullie

[Granny Danger]

2 minutes ago, Dunfermline Don said:

Is this the same Boris Johnson who would rather ‘die in a ditch’ and assured the DUP that there will be no border in the Irish Sea!

It’s the same Boris Johnson whose Conservative Party are polling about 10% ahead of Labour despite his continual lies.

And the same Boris Johnson that about half of Scotland prefer to see in charge of our future.

[dirty dingus]

20 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

This is straight from the Republican playbook.

This has nothing to with voter fraud which is not an issue if you look at the numbers of cases of voter impersonation.

It's about disenfranchising the poorest in society who may not have a passport or driver licence.
 

Lots of folk don't have themselves on the voters register as they think it will let debt agencies catch up with them. So there is no way they will be loooking to get some sort of ID card.

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by dirty dingus

[John Lambies Doos]

I persume Scotland don't have to adopt voter ID?

[strichener]

30 minutes ago, GordonS said:

"Vote early, vote often" was an actual catchphrase in Ireland.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/news-analysis-farewell-to-the-old-irish-custom-of-voting-early-voting-often-134091.html

Thanks, I read that as the verification process for NI was the same as the UK.  Therefore the UK is open to the same abuse albeit that there is currently no evidence that widespread fraud is being conducted.  I note that the measures introduced in NI reduced the electorate by 11% although there is no indication in the article of proportions as to what was genuine apathy to the new registration system or what were previously fraudulent entries.

I do think our current verification system for voting in person are too lax but I would have thought technology could have been used rather than defacto ID cards.

[lichtgilphead]

4 hours ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

As I said earlier, the right to vote is an important thing and should be treated with due seriousness.

If someone can’t be bothered to follow the correct procedures, then they don’t deserve to have that privilege.

People ARE following the correct procedures. It's Johnson & his Tory chums that are trying to change these procedures to disadvantage people that are less likely to vote for him.

Personally, I have no problem with carrying an ID card (I have to do it for work), but I know many people that object to carrying identification on principle. They are entitled to their principles. Why should they be obliged to abandon them to solve a problem that doesn't really exist?

If someone wants to carry out electoral fraud, there are far easier ways to do it than to turn up at the polling station & pretend to be someone else. That's why I suggested that you look up elections where the marked register has mysteriously disappeared...

[Salt n Vinegar]

These days you can have a fake anything. You should never believe anyone's ID.  Abraham Lincoln told me that.  He also told me that 87.3% of all statistics on the internet are fake. Can't trust anyone these days... 

[strichener]

Just now, lichtgilphead said:

If someone wants to carry out electoral fraud, there are far easier ways to do it than to turn up at the polling station & pretend to be someone else. That's why I suggested that you look up elections where the marked register has mysteriously disappeared...

I don't think there are far easier ways tbh, the level of checking at polling stations is negligable.

[lichtgilphead]

8 minutes ago, strichener said:

I don't think there are far easier ways tbh, the level of checking at polling stations is negligable.

In most cases, the Presiding Officers & Polling Clerks are locals. I used to be the PO at one of the boxes in Arbroath. My house at that time was 30 seconds walk away. It was my friends & neighbours that were voting. You would be taking a bit of a chance in turning up and claiming to be someone whose funeral I had attended during the previous week.

Edited to add - I could describe a simple method to vote multiple times, but I'm not describing it here.

Edited May 11, 2021 by lichtgilphead

[Dawson Park Boy]

41 minutes ago, dirty dingus said:

Lots of folk don't have themselves on the voters register as they think it will let debt agencies catch up with them. So there is no way they will be loooking to get some sort of ID card.

 

Well, there you go !

Now the real reason is coming out.

Somebody further back said ‘If you’ve nothing to hide, what’s the problem?’