The requirement to show photo ID in polling stations, which is expected to be introduced from 2023, looks very much like an attack on voting rights. Evidence of fraud, which the government claims is behind it, is minimal. Between 2010 and 2016, when there were two general elections and a referendum, there were just seven convictions.
Imagine if the paltry number of convictions were used to decry any other sort of social problem...
I suspect certain polling stations have been running diversity friendly reruns of Spartacus
ReplyDelete" I am Mohammed, I am Mohammed....."
What was (still is?) the slogan?
ReplyDelete"Vote early, vote often"
There might only have been seven convictions, but how many cases of suspected fraud were reported and how many were ignored by plod or the clown prosecution service for one reason or another?
Good comparison :-)
ReplyDeleteBut the Guardian have nothing to worry about. The Gov will talk about voter ID for a while and then finally bin the idea, just like everything else.
When one electoral ward had 10 times the national average of Postal Votes and 50 times the average of Proxy Votes, wouldn't you think that a tad suspicious? I did, so I reported it - what happened? Nothing, zero, zilch, silence - the local Returning Officer concluded 'Nothing to see here'.
ReplyDeleteIf you look for electoral fraud, it's exactly where you'd expect to find it, but you've got to want to find it and nobody does - lift up that stone and it's a festering mass of corruption.
They don't wasn't a problem to exist so magically one doesn't. Anyone who has been as close to politics for as long as I have knows that voting fraud as well as "mistakes" at counts are incredibly common. Our election system is riddled with such practices but nobody wants to know, not even the local election officials.
ReplyDelete"What was (still is?) the slogan?
ReplyDelete"Vote early, vote often""
Works in Chicago!
"But the Guardian have nothing to worry about. The Gov will talk about voter ID for a while and then finally bin the idea, just like everything else."
You're almost certainly correct. Again!
"If you look for electoral fraud, it's exactly where you'd expect to find it..."
Elsewhere, 'profiling' isn't a dirsty word. Why is it here, when it throws up inconvenient truths?