Photo ID to vote is a flagrant cladding attack

[Pireck]

You will need photo ID to vote in the general election this year. This won't be a problem for me personally as I have it, but many of the people where I grew up are too poor to drive or travel abroad. Many people in this country don't have valid photo ID, and they shouldn't have to to shell out a significant amount of money they likely don't have in order to cast their vote. An absolutely flagrant attack on the poor and otherwise deprived.

The title is supposed to read classist, not cladding.

Whether you think it's a right or a privilege is immaterial. The fact is that democracy, where it exists, has been hard won and it's up to the citizens of each democracy to nurture and protect it through political participation, including voting.

I agree. Going to vote is out of my way. It is much more of an effort to do that.

Exactly! @GinForBreakfast

I've never understood why a national ID card, which costs nothing, has been so maligned when governments know even the colour of your underwear with all the information they have on us.

FWIW, I fully support presenting an ID when voting. A vote should be protected from manipulation, and the only way to do it is with a legal identification.

Voter id is a deliberate attempt to skew political results.

How?

So far, the only ideas I've heard in favour of photo ID are 'it protects against fraud' which is unnecessary, as it has been proven that electoral fraud is not a significant issue, and 'it's easy for most people to find photo ID' which does not help that it isn't easy for some people, and which was the entire point of my initial post.

The whole point of a vote is it gauges the opinion of everyone who wishes to express it. Adding extra requirements does nothing but suppress a few of those voices, if you're happy with that, then please be honest with yourself. You are happy with a reduced democracy.

Because people with acceptable forms of ID tend to be an older demographic and more inclined to vote Tory.

You already need ID to vote in part of the UK - NI. It doesn’t change voter turn out relative to the rest of the UK. Total non issue.

@BIossomtoes doesn't seem to have impacted any elections in the last year!

One of the reasons why a compulsory ID card costing nothing, it's so important.

As to your answer .....the younger generation can vote without a valid ID if they want to vote. They have the means to do so. Saying that it is a deliberate political attempt by the Tories to stop the younger generation from voting is beyond ridiculous. As ridiculous as Trump, the friend of the Tories, saying the same in the US but targeting a different issue.

...the younger generation can vote without a valid ID if they want to vote. They have the means to do so.

That just isn’t true, is it? If you’d bothered to read the thread you’d see Tory MPs actually admitting what they were doing.

Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them – as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.”

“We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well”

I still find it unbelievable that people have issues with a national ID card, when our passports have biometrics technology, we put our digital imprint to open our mobile phones belonging to private American, Korean, Chinese companies etc and unless we've been off grid by not using any type of technology including credit cards, government and private companies know everything about us

But a national ID card is an issue 😳

This issue doesn't involve national ID cards, the free photo ID for voting can be used for voting only.

Not to have a passport is just unfathomable.

It was another poster who used the word feckless, not me. All I have said is they have harder lives on average, and therefore it would be harder to complete extra tasks. Please see other threads where you will be much more likely to take offence at anything.

It’s an issue because it would be compulsory. Owning a passport or smart phone is a choice.

Which is the reason I said a national ID card with a photo will solve voting problems.

Can you imagine what some people would be like if national ID cards were introduced!

lol. National ID card costs nothing?

It was costing £5.75BILLION and counting.

Do you think the government were going to fund it themselves? Have a whip round in the parliamentary bar?

What do you mean?

Rightly outraged, most likely.

Public resistance and lack of confidence in the government to keep their data safe, alongside spiralling costs (£5.75 bn +) were the reason they were scrapped.

When you open a bank account, how many types of ID you need to provide? How many types of ID you need to provide when you ask for a loan?

In this day and age, if you don't have a valid photo ID you have a serious problem even if you book a holiday overseas. And please, we all know the majority of the population own a smart phone.

Enough with the disingenuous posts trying to find a way to make a point.

Why?