Q&A thread for students and absent voters for voting in the General Election

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Not a thread for telling people how to vote and I'm praying for someone to come along who has actual experience working as an electoral officer.

In the mean time. Read this: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/UKPE-Part-D-Absent-voting.pdf

Liddle is fucking insensitive crass idiot if he tries to excuse his article as "light hearted"

Wanker

It's the way of the bully - push as far as you can, then if called out on it say 'I was only joking'. In the mean time, others will have heard the dog whistle.

You can also email your postal vote application. I found out the hard way when my application was too late for the European election. I'd relied on Royal Mail and posted it 12 days before the deadline. Turns out those 12 days included an obscure public holiday.

That is a good point. Many postal votes will be arriving before students break up.

In practice, you would not be found out.
In that case there should be a way of checking if people have voted twice.

In that case there should be a way of checking if people have voted twice.

To do that you would have to abolish the secret ballot and let the authorities know who you voted for, by matching the counterfoil to your ballot paper.

Mockers - so do all countries allow the possibility of voting twice if constituents have the right to vote in two place?
I’d have thought there’d be some way of stopping it - but maybe not.

I've no idea how it goes down in other countries, but we are unusual in having no ID Cards.

Yes but even ID cards would allow someone with two addresses - students or those with holiday homes, or London flats - to vote twice. I wonder how many people do it - the only way to stop it would be to only allow the voter to have a vote in one place.

Electoral fraud is historically - despite the lack of ID cards (and in a country that doesn't have cheap photo ID cards, requiring them would disenfranchise large swathes of the population - disproportionately the poor and the elderly ) - tiny.

This is the Electoral Commission's report into 2017 electoral fraud. Re double voting, 2.20-2.24 on page 14 is most relevant. Unless the cases of double voting were in North East Fife (majority of 2 ), they would have made no difference.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/Fraud-allegations-data-report-2017.pdf

Don't forget that postal strikes are being threatened also - you can take your postal vote to your polling station or to the address on the envelope instead if necessary: you don't have to use Royal Mail.

(But it's pretty poor to see several posters encouraging electoral fraud on this thread tbh Doesn't matter if they are voting for the "right" - obviously not literally, since it is MN - party: it's still fraud, and illegal. And a good way to play into the hands of those who want photo id to be mandatory - with all that entails for some sectors of society, who it's likely to disenfranchise.)

There is no evidence that electoral fraud is a problem that needs solving, and if you wanted to reduce the risk of fraud then you would restrict postal voting first. (NB I wouldn't do either of these things unless there is evidence to support them).

The U.K. needs free official ID cards before asking for ID at polling stations.

European countries which have ID cards usually provide them free, citizens have them from childhood, they have a very long validity period (they remain valid for some purposes even after expiry) and most citizens carry them systematically. That would require a big cultural shift in the U.K.

It's already easy for citizens to end up disenfranchised in the U.K. and we shouldn't want the number of disenfranchised citizens to increase.

There are not several posters encouraging electoral fraud on this thread! One commented that it would be possible (which would clearly be wrong) other than that I think you are misreading things Incognita.

And for the avoidance of doubt: students being registered in both places is not fraudulent. But they can only vote in one constituency in a GE (but can vote in both places in local elections).

www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/nov/07/should-you-vote-at-home-or-at-uni-students

"Encouraging" double voting?

What part of This is a crime in bold letters did you miss?

Do you need to register to vote if you're already on the electoral roll? I don't understand why they're not already on the electoral roll. DD has been on it since she was 16.

BonnesVacances - I think it's the same thing, but lots of people may never have registered, or moved and didn't re-register at their new address. She can contact the local Electoral Registration Office if she wants to check if she's registered.

Is there a downloadable poster to encourage people to register to vote?

I work with lots of mobile young people and would like to make sure they don't miss out. I'm sure I can do better than printing off the gov.uk web page and sticking on the notice board!

That's a good question! I'll keep an eye out.

studentvoter.info/

This might be useful for students deciding where their vote will carry most weight.

There are some posters on this site:

www.network.vote/