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?

I live in NI. Never even realised that you could vote without ID elsewhere in the UK - seems utterly bonkers to me that you wouldn't check identity at the polling station! But votes here can be on a knife edge in some areas and every vote counts - impersonation / fraud is definitely a risk

Is voting when you are not eleigible considered a fraud?

I know EU citizens who got to vote in referendum because system made them a card and some who got to vote in general elections as well.
We are not eligible to vote in either of these. But how would they at polling station know.

I am still huffy that I never had this mistake against my name😂 I want to vite in everything 😂

I'm 49 and have never had a passport or driving licence. I've voted in every election since I was 18 but always use the postal vote option.
Would love to have some form of inexpensive photo ID I could use for other things such as bank accounts.

Is voting when you are not eleigible considered a fraud?

Yes it is. Who is eligible differs by country. If you’re not sure who is eligible in your country, suggest you look it up.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Is voting when you are not eleigible considered a fraud?

Yes it is. Who is eligible differs by country. If you’re not sure who is eligible in your country, suggest you look it up.

I know who is eligible to vote here.

In that case, there is much more fraud than people think. Purely because system sometimes (looks like more often than sometimes, but not "often") throws up poll cards and marks people who shouldn't be eligible, as eligible. And they do go vote then. Well did. Future isn't particularly clear🙄

@ParentOfOne
“I still do not understand how IDs would be any use in making postal vote any more secure.....It really seems like a no brainer to me that the whole idea has no merit”

Mon dieu you are exhausting and only embarrassing yourself. Photo ID is to counter in person fraud at polling stations. Photo ID has fuck all to do with postal votes.

@SchrodingersImmigrant
Yes I agree a lot more fraud is going on than people realise.

@PlanDeRaccordement "PhotoID has all to do with postal votes"

No s*, Sherlock. That's the whole point I have been trying to make:

You want to spend unspecified amounts of money (I asked if it's been costed - deafening silence was the answer) to tackle a problem of unspecified, but likely very small extent. Not just that, but the IDs you are so keen on would, obviously, as even you admit, do nothing against postal vote fraud.

So: how much of electoral fraud is at the polls vs postal? You don't know, no one does. What % of an already small problem would your solution fix, and what % would it not fix?

Not just that, wouldn't fraud then move even more to postal vote?

Are you really French or did you just say mon dieu and choose your nickname because you like the sound of French words?

If you are Francophone, could it be that you are so keen on IDs because that's the system you grew up with, and you lack the mental flexibility to appreciate that what works for one country may not necessarily work for another?

Don't get me wrong, as I said before I am in favour of national ID cards because that would be a cheap and efficient way to prove identity and citizenship. Right now, proving citizenship without an expensive passport (which in theory is not compulsory, but de facto is) is tricky to impossible in some cases. But I am not in favour of compulsory ID schemes which conceal attempts at voter suppression, and must be interpreted in the context of the Tories' desire to also change the mayoral electoral systems.

PS At the very least the Home Office should issue citizenship certificates for free. Last I checked, they are more expensive than a passport (£250)

I recall many years ago I was asked for ID. I had plenty of official paperwork with me (council tax bill, paper provisional driving license plus a few bits more). The woman asking told me I needed to show her my driving license. With a raised eyebrow i handed her my paper PROVISIONAL paper license which I'd had pre photocards but was still valid and she said, "No, your full one".

Then she told me I needed to show her my passport. I told her I didn't have one. She replied, "Yeah right! ! How do you go on holiday then?!"

"I don't."

Thankfully a colleague who had been listening took over, shaking his head at the woman's ridiculous statements. Both my paper provisional license and my council tax bill were acceptable. Back then I was living well under the breadline, living off a bag of potatoes and frozen chicken breasts from Farmfoods.a week. We didn't have food banks back then and going by this proposed new rule, I wouldn't have been able to afford to vote for a government who could have addressed poverty like mine.

PS At the very least the Home Office should issue citizenship certificates for free. Last I checked, they are more expensive than a passport (£250)

I’d like to agree with you as my DB is about a year away from applying (married to British woman). The £250 is only the fee to replace a lost or damaged citizenship certificate. The fees to get one by registering as a citizen or applying to become one by naturalisation is much higher, over £1000.

@PlanDeRaccordement

PS At the very least the Home Office should issue citizenship certificates for free. Last I checked, they are more expensive than a passport (£250)

I’d like to agree with you as my DB is about a year away from applying (married to British woman). The £250 is only the fee to replace a lost or damaged citizenship certificate. The fees to get one by registering as a citizen or applying to become one by naturalisation is much higher, over £1000.

I think it's 1300 currently + ceremony fee + life in the uk tests + english tes + if you need solicitor it adds hundreds. It's really expensive. If I am not mistaken it's the highest price in Europe

@SchrodingersImmigrant You are talking about the fee for naturalisation.

What I mean is: if your children are born British (not naturalised), eg because born in the UK from parents who are British or legally settled, how do you prove their citizenship without getting a passport?

I see to remember the Home Office can issue citizenship certificates in these cases, but they are more expensive than a passport!

If you don't get a passport, you risk ending up in Windrush-like situations; imagine having to prove that your claim to citizenship derives from your great-grandparents being legally settled here when your grandfather was born (because no one in the family has ever had a passport - why should they have, it's not compulsory, right?). Good luck with finding the records of your greatgrandparents. Or with whoever is in charge (eg May's hostile environment thing) accepting them.

That's why I asked @00100001 , who said there are ways around it if you don't have a passport, how citizenship can be proven in these cases.

This is a classical example of why the British system of "in theory we don't need any ID but in practice without a passport you're stuffed" is nonsensical.

Yes. I am talking about the fees for naturalisation because it was in reply to a part of a post about a fees for naturalisation.

[quote Cameleongirl]@HalcyonSea. I don’t know much about life in Hong Kong but a quick Google told me that some ID cards were first introduced in 1949 and expanded to the whole population beginning in October 1950. So their introduction isn’t connected to the current regime, they’ve been the norm for 70 years.[/quote]
My post made no reference to Hong Kong? I replied to a poster who replied to a post the reference Hong Kong. I think you got a bit confused.

I understood that the plan would be for anyone who does not already have photo ID to be able to apply for a free ID card for this purpose so not sure where everyone is getting that this is about stopping those with less money from voting?

@Dorsetdays

I understood that the plan would be for anyone who does not already have photo ID to be able to apply for a free ID card for this purpose so not sure where everyone is getting that this is about stopping those with less money from voting?

What is your understanding based on? The 2019 Queen's speech did mention free ID for these cases; the 2021 does not.

Even if it's free for the end user, how much money would it cost? Throwing an unspecified amount of money at something we don't even know is a problem (and which would do nothing against postal vote fraud, which I think is easier to commit) doesn't seem like a particularly wise strategy to me.

Hearing some activists are suggesting that regardless of whether you have photo ID or not, you should apply for the free one.

That'll jam the system up for a few years.

Yes from the original bill and the pilots that have been held.

Like a lot of things, electoral fraud is something I’d prefer to prevent rather than wait for a major problem so I don’t see any major issues in this, providing of course that free ID cards are available for those who need them.

The law of unintended consequences - pushing people towards postal voting which has a much higher rate of fraud and coercion - is strong with this one.