2024 local elections

[kensalriser]

I can't see how it's Authoritanarianism personally. I mean if coersion was going to exist it would exist with people going around bullying people to vote a given way irrespective of if people were obliged to vote, so I don't understand the bully boy/stooges relevance. If it's the right to not vote for any of the canditates that's an issue, well mandatory voting doesn't require that you have to choose a candidate any more than staying away from the polls does now. You'd just have a optioned named "none of the above". If anything I'd say it's far better to actually count that "anti" vote than not. Currently you just don't know why people didn't vote.
If anything I have an opposite view. People died to protect our right to maintain a democracy against an authoritarian regime, in my view voting is a privilege that we shouldn't take for granted and thus I feel it's our civic duty to at the very least "express our opinion" in the democratic system, be that chose a candidate or say "f*ck off". Either way I think it's important the view is counted. In a way I also see it as a form of "rememberance" of those that died to protect our democracy.

Of course a lot of work would need to be done in order to make sure voting is easy, pain free and convenient so that those who are less mobile etc can have their say. It also needs to be impossible to corrupt.

You want to make voting easier but also to make voter ID, a solution to a problem that simply doesn't exist, compulsory. Not very consistent.

 

[Seanm]

Time for Sunak (the unelected, petulant billionaire) to resign, new Tory leader and once in place, go to the country for a new mandate...

...which they won't get cos Britain wants a Labour government.

“Want” seems not quite the right word.

 

[gez]

I don’t see voting as a privilege at all. If anything, it is a basic right that we should be able to take for granted.

That we feel it isn’t, and is a privilege, is part of the problem; there are elements in our leadership that believe they have a right to be there, and our right to vote otherwise is just a figleaf of democracy and only something to be paid lip service to.

You've misunderstood the sense in which I've used the word privilege. I don't mean it in the sense that people need to "earn the right" to vote, but that we are priviledged to be in a country that is a democracy and have the ability to vote. That privilege was gained due to the deaths and sacrifice made by former generations.

 

[gez]

You want to make voting easier but also to make voter ID, a solution to a problem that simply doesn't exist, compulsory. Not very consistent.

Nothing inconsistent about it at all. Voter ID is a purely technical/organisational challenge/change that would need to happen at a structural level. Once in place it would pose no barrier at all to people being able to vote, it would also free up a path way to online/electronic voting which is patently more convenient and easier for those who are unable to phsyically go to a polling station.

Introducing ID isn't about fixing a specific problem, it's about ensuring the trustworthiness and security of the vote. I don't believe that the only reason things should be done is to fix a known existing problem. I believe in doing things the right way. It's really very simple. All citizens should vote, one way or another. But only citizens have that privilege/right. Thus you implement something to ensure that is the case.

 

[Markyb]

I would think the postal vote is much more open to fraud and tampering than any vote in person at a polling station.

 

[gavreid]

I would think the postal vote is much more open to fraud and tampering than any vote in person at a polling station.

They do compare the signature provided against a copy on file. There is no evidence of sytematic abuse, neither was there at polling stations except in one of two cases that were dealt with under election law.