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People denied right to vote in UK for first time ever due to lack of ID

orrinoconnor said:
Conversly I remain off the opinion that if no one votes for the lesser of two evils; as they currently do it shows government that they are getting little support and ultumately the people are disgusted with them!
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Guess what - the real villains don't care if you are disgusted with them. Provided they are lining their pockets / their mates' pockets and lining up cushy private sector jobs after their brief stint of public "service" they couldn't care if the turnout is low.

So go out and vote for the lesser of two evils, or you may end up with a Trump yourself.
 
richgilb said:
and did not undo anything the Tories did previously.
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You obviously didn't live in the UK in the mid 90s when the NHS was falling apart, public services were a total shambles, schools were underfunded, cars were being stolen left and right and homes broken into on every street.
The UK changed markedly between 1997 and 2008 (not for every region, granted), and now the new tories are busy trashing the NHS, schools, social services again.
 
orrinoconnor said:
Conversly I remain off the opinion that if no one votes for the lesser of two evils; as they currently do it shows government that they are getting little support and ultumately the people are disgusted with them!
To simply for A or B is not a true choice and any vote for any party shows support for a manifesto which may as well be written on toilet paper.
Government are answerable to the people in name only and this needs to change!
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If voter turnout is low and candidate X wins, they will convince themselves that all is well. If voter turnout is high and candidate X wins but has tens of thousands of votes less than there were spoilt ballot papers, then there is no way they could convince themselves they had a mandate. If you really don't like any of them it makes more sense to spoil your ballot paper as it says "I do care and I am on your case, so watch it"
 
I think it is time to make voting compulsory. However only if it means the Tories never get in again.
 
Rodrat said:
I think it is time to make voting compulsory. However only if it means the Tories never get in again.
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yes and presenting an id should be compulsory. in fact we should have an Id card, a national DNA database, and a national hair style
 
I'm not sure what problem this is supposed to be addressing, other than a perceived problem. The most likely place for abuse to happen would be postal ballots, since pressure can be applied on the voter (or even, another person at the address can complete the postal vote for another person), and presenting ID when voting is not going to address this. However, i'm pretty confident that no vote has ever been affected in a meaningful way by subterfuge in the UK. Long may that continue.
 
Derek Wright said:
The last Labour government was in process of introducing ID cards, much disgust if I remember from the vocal left
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I was a paid up member of Lab and supported the Id card. I resigned my membership when Corbyn was elected leader
 
Tony L said:
I’ve never been asked for anything beyond presenting my polling card. I know in the US it has been a deliberate strategy of the political right to deny the vote in poor black areas etc and it will be sickening should it arrive here. Journalist Greg Palast is very interesting to read on this subject, he has mountains of evidence of election rigging in the US driven by the Republican Party and their affiliates.
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I am 66.
I have never taken a voting card to the voting station.
I have never been asked for it as until today it was never necessary to have any I’d On you.
Not that possession of a card is proof.
 
gintonic said:
I was a paid up member of Lab and supported the Id card. I resigned my membership when Corbyn was elected leader
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I was also a paid up member of Labour and opposed the ID card on the grounds that plenty of ID already existed. I resigned my membership after Corbyn was elected leader because it rapidly became obvious that the old failed Blairites who had already seen off Gordon Brown would rather see the party destroyed than work for a Labour government under Corbyn therefore Labour is a lost cause.
 
I went to the post office today and was denied collecting own parcel because I didnt have Id. Typical Tory authoritarianism.
I then went to the bank and they denied giving me cash from my own bank account because I didn't have id. Typical Tory authoritarianism.
I then went to vote and by then I had realised that in a country of 60+ million certain important things such as voting or my money in a bank should have some controls that in reality are nothing in the grand scheme of things and sensible to avoid fraud. Still some people don't know what to whinge about or try and twist into some pathetic restriction on their freedoms.
 
Barrymagrec said:
I was also a paid up member of Labour and opposed the ID card on the grounds that plenty of ID already existed. I resigned my membership after Corbyn was elected leader because it rapidly became obvious that the old failed Blairites who had already seen off Gordon Brown would rather see the party destroyed than work for a Labour government under Corbyn therefore Labour is a lost cause.
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Just last week I had to present two forms of Id with my name and address for something. In years gone by this was not problematic with plenty of bills, bank statements etc nowadays with everything online and paperless this proved to be almost impossible. I managed it eventually, but I'd much prefer to have an Id card to prove who I was.

Labour is a lost cause since they threw away the centre ground
 
Where's the evidence that voter fraud is a significant enough problem to justify this? As always, the question is not whether fraud exists but how big a problem it is, how much would it cost to fix it, and does the adverse impact on "innocent" voters justify catching a few baddies.

Trump banged on about Democrats committing voter fraud in the US election and provided precisely zero evidence to back up his claims. I suspect the situation is the same in the UK.

This is a nakedly party-political move by the Tories because they're morally and intellectually bankrupt and losing the battle for the hearts and minds of young people.

A more serious problem, in my view, is the lack of participation in the democratic process (I predict apathetically low turnout today). I bet the Tories aren't getting hot under the collar about that though because they know that voter apathy usually favours right-wing parties.
 
wyjsar said:
Drood, have you ever heard of Lutfur Rahman?
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Yes. Lots of dodgy stuff happened but I can't find any indication of widespread voter identity fraud. The judgement:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/judgment.pdf

says there were well under 100 false registrations (para 314) and only goes on to consider a small number of these where there were clear links to Rahman's campaign. Likewise, the judgement talks about "appreciable" amounts of personation (para 337) but it's likely from the context that "appreciable" refers mostly to cases related to false registration discussed previously.

So, even in this quite exceptional case, the numbers are small - well under 100 compared with total votes cast of 70,000.

I remain sceptical that voter ID is necessary and believe it will do more harm than good. And I'm beyond sceptical thet the Tories pushing the idea out of concern for the democratic process.
 
gintonic said:
yes and presenting an id should be compulsory. in fact we should have an Id card, a national DNA database, and a national hair style
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Is that not what government want,,, and all of us robots prepaired to tick A or B in the belief that we are doing the right thing voting for the lesser of two evils.
 
russel said:
If voter turnout is low and candidate X wins, they will convince themselves that all is well. If voter turnout is high and candidate X wins but has tens of thousands of votes less than there were spoilt ballot papers, then there is no way they could convince themselves they had a mandate. If you really don't like any of them it makes more sense to spoil your ballot paper as it says "I do care and I am on your case, so watch it"
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Russel, I think you are incorrect in that assumption,, if 100 people vote,, 90 vote for A 10 vote for B Hip Hip Horray A wins,,,,, but they are on very shaky ground 100 do not a populous make. Fewer and fewer people are voting as time goes by,,, that is why governments were talking about making it compulsory they see the writing on the wall.
 
Or
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I think that on every ballot paper there should be a 'none of the above' box, and if 'none of the above' wins the ballot, there has to be a re-election, and none of the candidates who stood before can stand again.[/QUOTE
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Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I think that on every ballot paper there should be a 'none of the above' box, and if 'none of the above' wins the ballot, there has to be a re-election, and none of the candidates who stood before can stand again.
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Sue, I would go one further,, not only the candidate but the party cannot stand again,,,, now that would be real change!
 
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