Voting ID is a nonsense

[Cranmer]

They asked to see my ID at the polling station door, but I went to the desk and could have said I was anyone. Should they not check it against your name and address, not just randomly look at the picture at the door?

All this does is put people off voting as they can't be bothered to get their passport out the drawer. Grrrrr

This is one of the key contradictions in this nonsense ID requirement. Postal votes are the most vulnerable to fraud and pressure. There have been instances of postal vote interference. But we leave that vulnerable.

YANBU surely the whole point of this is to make sure voters are who they say they are? Just proves its all about discouraging some people from voting :(

I presume because fraud involved with post is covered by it's own act?

There as fraud - which is basically non-existent - and mistakes at the ballot box is not properly covered.

The police are preventative aswell
Its not just about tackling crime !

No it is all electoral fraud.

If you need ID to cast a vote in person you should need it to register for and cast a postal vote.

You're stretching your point but it does not compare at all. Of course the police have a preventative role, but it is to prevent crimes we think might happen. We do not have a police force to prevent crimes we don't think are ever going to happen.

Voter fraud is not going to happen. It therefore does not need to be prevented. It only exists in the mind of the deluded!

In case it's of any interest, here is my experience as a poll worker in the US. (It may be different in different states.)

We do require unexpired picture ID with a signature in order to vote in person. While this may be a barrier for a small minority of people, I truly believe that if someone is engaged enough to register to vote, they have the wherewithal to obtain a picture ID in the very unlikely event they don't have one. The vast vast majority of people use their drivers licenses as their ID, which makes our lives easier because we can scan them to automatically bring up the voter's information when checking them in. But we also accept passports, state IDs, student IDs, military IDs, state employee IDs, and several others, including a debit or credit card with photo.

We have a poll worker stationed on the door. While he or she won't be checking IDs, they may ask the incoming voter if they have it with them and to have it ready. This is just to save time.

A key point is that no one is ever turned away! If we can't find a voter in our records (maybe they didn't register to vote), or they don't have ID with them, or if the ID is expired, for example, they can vote a provisional ballot. This doesn't get counted with all of the rest of the ballots, but goes to the supervisor of elections office where they can investigate more thoroughly, and if it turns out that this really is an eligible voter their ballot will be scanned and their votes counted.

But the process to register can be done much faster, can be done remotely and is led in many cases by community campaigners - the voter ID requirement has hampered voter registrations drives in poorer communities as the threshold to get ID is so much higher, more time consuming and more expensive.

That’s true enough. My DH and I voted by post and I really wondered why there was no requirement for voter ID.

I do wonder why more wasn’t made of the fact that ID isn’t required for postal voting? It means that no one needs to be disenfranchised at all by lack of photo ID.

I was more miffed that I had to limp to the other side of my town when I can see a building they use as a polling station, from my frontroom window,

I was commenting on your previous one liner.
Which is incorrect.

For clarity then:

You think we need these new rules to prevent crimes that it is accepted (by the Electoral Commission and the Police) are not going to happen, and I think we do not need to take action to prevent things that are not going to happen.

I don't understand why you think we need to take action to prevent things that are not going to happen, that feels quite a waste of human endeavour, but I think I understand your POV.

@Khara

oh right, the two I had wouldn't have coped with that, they were struggling with the pencil & ruler! And there was only me there, no pressure of a long queue!

I'm sorry, but I really don't believe that the threshold to get ID is that high.

However, if there is a registered voter who just wasn't in a position to procure one of the many types of picture ID that are accepted, they still have options. They can request a vote by mail ballot which they can either mail back (for free) or drop off at an early voting site - no ID required. Or if they want to vote in person but don't have ID they can vote a provisional ballot, which will be counted once the supervisor of elections office determines that they are indeed a registered voter.

@USPollWorker the problem is that in the UK, introducing voter ID was a solution to a problem that did not exist. Add to that the fact that the accepted forms of existing ID (i.e. not the new one you could apply for) were heavily skewed towards a demographic that was more likely to vote Conservative and you get optics that are ugly.

What should have happened was that the UK should have introduced a universal ID card, as exists in many countries, and only then gone about introducing voter ID.

It is a law to try to suppress non-Tory voting. Acceptable ID is not even consistent across the country.

I hope all the opposition parties pledge to repeal the law concerned, which also ended second preference voting for Mayoral elections and those for Police and Crime Commissioners.

You should be able to use the digital copy as well.

It is factually harder/more time consuming to get a piece of ID than it is to put your name on the register.

Your additional option of if they want to vote in person but don't have ID they can vote a provisional ballot, which will be counted once the supervisor of elections office determines that they are indeed a registered voter is a big differece from the UK system where people are just turned away - the benefit of a written constitution with individual rights!

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to request a Btitish passport to vote in a British election.

Yes, box-ticking idiocy by people who haven't a clue what they're supposed to be doing

Absolute nonsense. In local elections, people who are foreign nationals living in the UK are fully entitled to vote. I should know, I am one. The rules do not specify the nationality of the passport, only that it should be a passport and that is as it should be.

What a very Little Englander mentality!

Why ? They had their voting card to prove they were eligible

Irish people can vote in UK elections if they are on the register

Register to vote - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Irish passports are valid

How to vote : Photo ID you'll need - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

• a UK or Northern Ireland photocard driving licence (full or provisional)
• a driving licence issued by the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, the Isle of Man or any of the Channel Islands
• a UK passport
• a passport issued by the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or a Commonwealth country
• a PASS card (National Proof of Age Standards Scheme)
• a Blue Badge
• a biometric residence permit (BRP)
• a Defence Identity Card (MOD form 90)
• a national identity card issued by the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein
• a Northern Ireland Electoral Identity Card
• a Voter Authority Certificate
• an Anonymous Elector’s Document

If she is legally on the voting register, then surely a passport would prove her ID?
Regardless of the country of origin.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to request a Btitish passport to vote in a British election.

Campaign for that then. Cut down on immigration even more than Brexit has and see where that leaves us. With no dentists at all probably.

At the moment people who aren't British have the right vote.

@JudgeRudy people like me are allowed to vote in local elections because we live locally and pay taxes locally. Taxation, representation and all that.

We can't vote in General Elections because we are not British nationals.
I'm surprised you did not know this. Or perhaps I'm not.