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.

What part of what I posted is untrue? I know someone who refuses to have a smartphone and didn’t have a passport for years. How often do people open bank accounts? I haven’t opened one for 27 years and you don’t need ID to apply for a loan online.

I opened a bank account this week. I needed 3 proofs of address as I don't have photo ID.

I volunteer for a number of different organisations, I had to provide so many different forms of ID for them.

So many things require some form of ID now, the voting ID actually seems quite simple to other things

That's up to your government. In Spain costs nothing.

Apologies, my DH just told me it costs 12 euros. It lasts 5 years until you hit 30 and then it's still 12 euros for 10 years

This is how, @Alondra

equalitytrust.org.uk/blog/voter-id-law-punishes-poor-and-creates-less-equal-society

Or this

www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/11/voter-id-in-england-led-to-racial-and-disability-discrimination-report-finds

A different type of example

First snapshot of Voter ID impact on election in East of England www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-65576549

Trump created barriers to voting, didn't he? The Tories learned from it and liked what they saw.

Thanks for the info. In Australia if you don't have a photo ID, you can't open a bank account. To be fair, it cost nothing to get a government photo ID card if you don't drive or have a passport. But is still ridiculous that different States need their own photo ID, when a national one is so much simpler.

365 instances of alleged voter fraud, 2.5 convictions, 1 caution per year. (average figure from electoral commission).

14,000 people known to have been disenfranchised by not having voter ID. NB these figures don’t include those who didn’t enter the poll station / didn’t go in the first place because of lack of ID. (government’s own figures)

£15-18m per year to implement voter id system. (Links within this article)

For those of you who believe the system isn’t onerous or designed to disenfranchise non-Tory voters - can you honestly say you believe this is value for money? An important scheme? Solving a major problem?

Do you not accept that 14,000+ uncast votes is more problematic than 365 fraudulently cast ones?

I don't have a passport, neither does my DH or any of the DC. We don't holiday abroad, why would we need a passport?

Lol at ‘you need photo ID even if you book a holiday overseas’.

well, yeah, you do need a passport to travel to another country.

🤣

Thank you for highlighting a key issue, the majority of people have a smartphone. A minority do not. A minority also have no ither form of photo ID. It is this minority which are most at risk of losing their vote, by not being able to apply for the free photo ID.
You might think 'oh but that's only a few people', 'they might not cote anyway!' Or 'they sound too clueless to vote' (all reasons other people have put forward to downplay this issue). Do you think it's OK that it is now more difficult for these people to organise their vote?

All of those are choices and they don’t lead to a centralised database of information on every person in the country, held by a government so inept and corrupt it couldn’t make plastic gloves to spec.

Not at all if you live in the Schengen area in Europe. You only need a valid ID card.

Because without a passport, how on earth does one get to Cham for the season, daahling?

But we don’t, do we? We can’t go anywhere outside the UK without a passport.

Oh my god. Are you being serious? I can’t tell.

Of course it costs money in Spain.

Might not cost you (much) as the end user, but you’re paying for the scheme through your taxes.

How do you think they pay for the creation and storage of the huge database of information linked to the cards? The allocation of unique ID numbers? Fraud investigation?

Fuck me.

Do you think the only cost is printing a piece of plastic?

You can get ID for free. It's to prevent electoral fraud, not to punish worse off people.
YABU.

Obviously not. But it means a passport is not necessary to travel overseas in 27 European countries with a valid ID card. 🙄

Oh silly me. I thought you were talking about the UK on a thread about the UK.

So did I. We’re obviously very foolish @Watchthewindow.

@Watchthewindow We were talking why a photo ID is necessary when you cast your vote. I agreed a photo ID is necessary when casting a ballot, and strongly advocated for a national ID national document with almost negligible cost, solving a lot of issues for people without a driver's license or a passport.

One thing you are right about. It's a British issue.

I wouldn’t call £5.75 billion a negligible cost, but hey, I guess you’re just minted.

Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t think we’re the foolish ones.

I think that might be the person who thinks national ID cards are free. 🤣

I've no strong opinion on voter ID.

I do think the way they're going about it with voter certificates is ridiculous. The resistance to universally accepted state ID not connected to passports or driving is so bizarre to me. They're following the practices of many nations of having voter ID, but not the easiest routes to make that work. Like in the US, you can get a non-driver state ID through the same way as a drivers license. It works for everything, not just voting. I know there was the giant freak out about required biometric state ID, but there really needs to be a better option than the mess we're having when having ID is used so many in everyday life.

I agree that it is in part a tactic to deal with certain political sectors claiming people who shouldn't vote are voting and create the image of the government taking action while not doing much, with other potential impacts not cared about. It's similar to why biometric residency IDs came in - certain political sectors made claims that visa IDs weren't strong enough, they got loud enough and the government wanted to appear strict on immigration (and possibly was a bit annoyed about the biometric ID freakout and wanted to make it required for someone), so non-EU migrants have for over a decade now have needed biometric ID to be able to work or access services, which last I checked were about £300 each, were retroactively applied so migrants who had been here decades needed to find evidence for their entire time under their current visa to regain the rights of that visa, and majorly impacted women who had been family carers and so didn't have many of the documents accepted or sometimes contacts that could be references so lost basic rights. Oh, and most of them even if applied for years apart have the same expiry date - the end of this year.

The UK also needs to drop the archaic practices of references from certain professions. We have much better methods now and that is a very classist practice, especially as certain professions have been qualified with the 'they have to recognise and be able to talk about you as a friend from your photo'.