To be shocked by plan to disenfranchise the poor.

[Fab39ish]

Just seen a report on my facebook feed which suggests that the Government want to make it compulsory to provide photo ID to vote.
What happens to people who don't drive or have a passport?
Is there a national cheap photo ID card you can buy. But even so if you are poor maybe you won't be able to afford that?

So Iona would you be happy to spend more than a weeks salary on a document which enabled you to vote but you had no use for otherwise?

I fully support the government requesting ID. However, what I object to is them not considering that many do not have appropriate ID assuming they will require passport or driving licence. In those cases they should offer a free photo ID as in Norther Ireland. Yet the newspapers say that they are not considering this as an option.

£72.50 is a lot of money for a lot of people, even if they are employed.

If it happens, then nobody knows how they are going to get round that. Nobody knows how a lot of the manifesto pledges of different parties will be funded.

My elderly mother had to get a passport recently to satisfy her bank that she is who she says she is. She has banked with them for something like 60 years but suddenly they decided that if she couldn't provide photo ID by X date they'd stop her using her account. £70 odd quid just to be allowed to continue accessing her own money . Lucky she's comfortably off and it's not a financial hardships. She in her 80s and in ailing health. The chances of her ever needing a passport to travel is vanishingly small. I hate the way the government and big business assume that everyone had a passport.

That may be so but it is still a. If issue for those that don't.
The only benefit claimants I know don't drive or have passports.

I don't drive and have no passport. What a dreadful idea!!

And perhaps the Guardian, Independent and Facebook aren't the most reliable of sources for political balance

True Livia but bits especially catastrophic if it represents your whole income for a week.

Nobody knows who is going to win or how many election pledges they will actually enact. Look at tax credits - they weren't abolished despite the Tories trying to do it.

Have the Tories actually said they will do it and that it will have to be a passport or driving licence?

If you are concerned about each and every report in the papers and Facebook, it's going to be a long few years for you.

O and the rest of the press are? Try finding balance in The Mail or The sun.

If you are concerned about each and every report in the papers and Facebook, it's going to be a long few years for you.

Yep.

They have systematically cut Tax Credits to the bone though and cut them for the 3rd child.

Well let's come back in 2 years and revisit this.

Maybe some of those you know on JSA will be lucky enough to have found jobs then?maybe it will he means tested? Maybe they will do a credit plan for a few quid per month? Nobody knows.

But the point is that in itself it doesn't automatically exclude poor people

Hopefully

O and the rest of the press are? Try finding balance in The Mail or The sun.

None of the papers are politically unbiased - what is your point?

The current system of turning up to a polling station and only having to give a name and address is basically an honour system, relying on people being honest. So clearly open to abuse.

But the recent cases where electoral fraud has been proven or investigated have turned round postal voting, and false entries onto the electoral roll - that's where I would focus efforts to tackle the problem

Hopefully

Look I'm as political a person as you could meet. My right to vote is vitally important to me. I have no passport or driving licence and I won't be getting one. But I prefer not to speculate and panic just in case things are going to be as laid out on Facebook.

Well personally I feel I would trust a broadsheet over a right wing rag.
But maybe that is just me.
Agree that there's going to be bias everywhere and things are open to interpretation. However, in general there is for more bias on the right.
Which is why I have conceded that it a a bad thing if it happens and acknowledged that it is possible that photo id may not be required. I certainly hope so.

You shouldn't trust any paper - they all have an agenda. The Telegraph is a Tory paper and that's a broadsheet!

I think there's plenty of bias both ways.

Genuine question - are you quite an anxious person? voter fraud needs addressing in some way, I imagine all the parties will be looking at different options

I know things are uncertain right now but donning a tinfoil hat really isn't going to help you

No.

I think people do not need dictating to.

I think believing anything in the mainstream media is potentially dangerous, but then I'm cynical

Can you imagine the riots if they actually do go ahead with this?