Photo ID needed to vote? Please no.

[flashbac]

The government are bringing in (photo) voter ID meaning you'll need to show your passport or driving licence when going to cast your vote.

By all means reform the postal voting system but not this. Not everyone drives or goes abroad and this will bar many people from voting. Driving licences and passports are not cheap.

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/10/queens-speech-photo-id-future-elections-social-care?

Only acceptable if there is a free and accessible alternative to a passport or driving licence.

And tie it with your covid passport too.

I didn’t have photo I.D for the first 10 years of my adult life. Couldn’t afford it. That’ll be a kick in the teeth to many on lower incomes that aren’t able to pay for photo ID.

@LostInTime

How does this stop election fraud by postal voters, when their ID won't be checked due to voting by post?

Postal vote fraud is usually done by the campaigners handling and counting the postal votes. “We do not recommend restricting the availability of postal voting in Great Britain. The impact on the overwhelming majority of electors who find postal voting a convenient and secure method of voting would not be proportionate to the potential integrity benefits. There are, however, some changes we want to see made to existing processes in order to make postal and proxy voting more secure, including continued urgent action by ROs and police forces in areas where there is a higher risk of allegations of electoral fraud and changes to stop campaigners handling absent voting materials, including absent voting applications and blank or completed postal ballot packs.”

I have no photo id. My passport expired over 20 years ago. I'm not paying for a flash card driving license when I've lived in the same house over 30 years. I do agree we should have id cards though issued free of charge.

The UK getting over its aversions to ID cards could easily sort this.

Can someone please explain to me why the British are so averse to ID cards? ID is required for so many things anyway and many countries have had national ID cards for a long time without turning into fascist police states. I’m never quite sure what the strong aversion to them is, especially if cost isn’t an issue (which it shouldn’t be).

Governments have wanted a National ID card systems for years. Blair and Brown spent years trying to fully implement them with the excuse of ‘terrorism’, or rather, anti terrorism. There was a limited roll out of non compulsory ID cards but they had hoped to wait til the cards could contain biometric data before really pushing them through. The Cameron government dropped it completely for UK citizens when they came to power. In fact, Tories have traditionally been opposed to them. I wonder if the sweeping emergency powers they implemented, almost unopposed, during COVID gave them a new vigour for thinking a universal method of surveillance might be a good idea. I think ‘voting fraud’ is as much of a red herring as ‘terrorism’ was back in 2002.

I agree that free ID cards are the way to go and I can’t understand why people are opposed to them. They make complete sense to me and would be useful in many situations. My DD (16) recently opened a new bank account and luckily she has a passport- her school didn’t issue ID cards this year due to Covid so that was literally the only photo ID she had.

@FeatheredHope

The UK getting over its aversions to ID cards could easily sort this.

Can someone please explain to me why the British are so averse to ID cards? ID is required for so many things anyway and many countries have had national ID cards for a long time without turning into fascist police states. I’m never quite sure what the strong aversion to them is, especially if cost isn’t an issue (which it shouldn’t be).

Lived here a long time and not getting it either.

I am still at awe that you can easily go through life with no official photo id here.
Wehre I am from we need it for everything. No way can you get loan etc without it, which also makes it harder to do false applications under someone else's name.

@AnnaAurelia

In Hong Kong we all (locals and expats) have ID cards (known as HKID). I thought it was really strange when I first came here but 4 years on I think it’s brilliant. Everyone gets an identity card that you use for absolutely everything no need to use a driving license/passport (even in the airport, you just swipe your HKID although obviously you have to have your passport for the other end of the flight!). I’d be in favour of having a similar system here, it means no one ever has to pay for ID and it can be used for voting etc! But requiring people to in effect pay to vote would be dreadful

Perhaps Hong Kong is not the right place to cite if you want us to use identity cards. We all saw the pro-democracy protesters getting dragged off to mainland China and imprisoned, you know.

If you think this is a crap idea, please write to your MP. You can do it in a few minutes online via www.writetothem.com/ and all you need is your postcode to find out who your MP is.

@WorkingItOutAsIGo

There is a validated alternative called something like a Citizen card which only costs about £10.00 so provided that was allowed then it is not such a restriction on voting.

But it is ID cards by the back door which I think the country is against.

When I looked into getting one of these it seemed that they are not accepted in some circumstances.

We need a proper national ID card system.

This is voter suppression by stealth, IMO.

As it happens, I am not at all opposed to national ID cards- as long as they are free and accessible to all.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]“Polling station voting in Great Britain remains vulnerable to personation fraud because there are currently few checks available to prevent someone claiming to be an elector and voting in their name. This part of the system could become more vulnerable to fraud as other processes (including electoral registration and postal or proxy voting) become more secure. We have therefore concluded that there should be a requirement for electors across Great Britain to present an acceptable form of identification prior to voting at the polling station.
We have found little evidence to suggest that the identity-checking scheme applied in Northern Ireland presents difficulties for people in terms of accessibility. At the same time, it provides a level of security that virtually eliminates the risk of personation. For these reasons, the system in Northern Ireland should provide the basis for a Great Britain-wide, geographically consistent and compulsory polling station voter identification scheme.”
www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/Electoral-fraud-review-final-report.pdf[/quote]
It's a bit of a reach someone who impersonate someone else, though. They would have to know their name and address and which polling station they use. And that they have not already voted that day.
And they could only do it once, surely.
I'd like to know how often this happens, I suspect not very often.

Given the direction that human rights is going in the UK, you need to be thankful you'll be allowed to vote, providing you can afford to.

But I would love to see the actual evidence that there is a significant problem with people turning up to vote in someone else's name. Just because something is possible doesn't make it something that happens. Low voter turn out is much more significant a problem, and what are we doing to address that? Nothing.

This all smacks to me of deflection, just as Trumps similar claims were shown to be invalid. So what exactly are they trying to deflect us from?

Perhaps Hong Kong is not the right place to cite if you want us to use identity cards. We all saw the pro-democracy protesters getting dragged off to mainland China and imprisoned, you know.

And we all saw Boris trying to sneak in legislation to curtail the right to protest a few weeks ago. Are you absolutely sure that we are that far away from them?

especially if cost isn’t an issue (which it shouldn’t be)
Well, that depends on what you mean by cost. Do you mean the cost paid directly by the end user? The ID cards issued by the Blair government (in Manchester and the North West in 2009 and London for 16-24 years olds) cost GBP30.00. Too much for some people, but not that much for lots of others. However, by May 2010 there were only 15,000 cards in circulation (voluntarily obtained obviously), and yet the whole project was estimated to have cost the taxpayer GBP5 billion (widely assumed by institutions like LSE to be a huge underestimate). And if they’re going to be such an important document, you’re disenfranchised from democracy without one, there will also have to be a huge National database set up. How much do you think will cost to purchase, implement and administer?

I haven't left the country since I was 18 as I can't afford it. I definitely can't afford £75 for a passport just so that I can exercise my right to vote.

A first provisional driving licence is £43, then £20 plus at least £5 for photos every 10 years to replace it. I have one to prove my age even though I can't afford to learn to drive but many people can't afford that kind of money just to vote.

If we're to provide photo id to vote then it needs to be free or its a kind of voter suppression akin to the ridiculous lines in poorer areas of the US.

I'm all for everyone having compulsory (free) basic id cards but I am against the ones Blair wanted with biometric data etc. A basic card with photo, name, address, dob and maybe medical alerts on would be good. Then there'd be no need to have a licence if you can't afford to drive just to prove your age, wouldn't need a school bus pass to get half price bus fare, can easily prove name/address at the bank etc.

I'm irish living in the UK and when I voted the first time I took my passport along as this is standard in Ireland. I was quite surprised that nobody checked, I could have been anybody! At home it's never checked because I live in a small town and the same people run the polling stations all the time and they know me . So I see this as a good thing but there needs to be a wider list of acceptable forms of id. We have something called garda id or the age card in Ireland which people use in pubs etc to prove they are over 18 which is far cheaper than a passport , might be a better option for use over here.

If the gov are offering free ID cards then I can’t see an issue. If they’re expecting people to fork out for a provisional driving licence or passport then they’re unlawfully preventing democracy.

I disagree. I think there should be some kind of identification to vote. Even if it’s just your polling card, if you don’t have a drivers licence or passport.

The fact you just rock up and say “John Smith” and don’t even have to give your address as they read your address back to you as a question means anyone can go and take my vote before me.

I used to be against national ID cards on principal, but I now look at the number of issues that could have been avoided if there was proof of identification, nationality, and residence (Windrush, EU citizens residency rights after Brexit, etc.) and now I'm much les sure it's a bad idea.

If anything is brought in for voter identification it must be free, and should apply to all - no exemptions even if you already have a diving licence and/or passport. It should not be possible to identify someone's social status as "too poor for a passport" from the identification they use at the polling station.

The solution is within the article:

The government has previously said people would be able to apply for a voting ID card from their local council, although this would have to be done before polling day.

@GreyStairs

I disagree. I think there should be some kind of identification to vote. Even if it’s just your polling card, if you don’t have a drivers licence or passport.

The fact you just rock up and say “John Smith” and don’t even have to give your address as they read your address back to you as a question means anyone can go and take my vote before me.

I know! I expected "what's your address?" Nope. Just "is xxxxx your address?"