Demanding photo ID at polling stations discriminates against the poor and the young, argues Paul Wheeler
While the nation gently snoozed off its post-Christmas excess the government thought that Boxing Day was the best time to announce major changes to the voting system. The suggestion to introduce compulsory voter ID for the 2020 general election is, needless to say, part of a wider programme to narrow the voting franchise and eligibility to vote.
Consider the ill-considered and rushed introduction of individual voter registration (which, as one by-product, has seen the number of 17-18 year olds register to vote collapse in most of our major cities), the reduction of the number of members of parliament (just when the role of a backbench MP is becoming more significant with Brexit) and a flawed parliamentary boundary review based on a inaccurate electoral register missing millions of eligible voters.
Get ready in 2017 for a ‘spontaneous’ demand from Tory MPs for the removal of the long-established voting rights of Irish and Commonwealth citizens. Just to add to the script was the abolition of the one parliamentary select committee who took an interest in voting rights (the political and constitutional affairs select committee ably led by Graham Allen MP) immediately after the 2015 general election.
There may well be a case for voter ID at polling stations, although no substantial evidence has been provided by the government or the Electoral Commission. What is true is that all the international evidence suggests that a demand for expensive photographic evidence such as passports and driving licences discriminates against the poor and the young.
A much simpler solution would be to ask voters for their date of birth. Electoral officers already request this information to determine eligibility for jury service and inclusion on the register for 16/17 year olds. We just need to make this a universal request for all voters and provide a private master list in polling stations. An effective proposal which would avoid all the bureaucracy and costs involved with the government demands for voter ID and would which would be just as effective as deterring impersonation at the polling station.
More to the point, the really effective answer to voter fraud (and especially in relation to the more serious problems with postal vote fraud) is the systematic application of the existing laws. Those with long memories will remember that electoral regularities in the London borough of Hackney in the 1990s ceased when those involved were imprisoned.
The real question that the government and its self-styled ‘corruption czar’ Eric Pickles avoided is why modern day police forces and criminal prosecution services are strangely reluctant to commence similar criminal proceedings even in the face (as in Tower Hamlets over many years) of overwhelming evidence.
Since the introduction of the universal franchise almost a 100 years ago our electoral system has been predicated on the premise on encouraging as many citizens as possible to register and vote. We now have a government determined to make a wholesale reversal of this trust-based system without any substantial or independent evidence to justify this fundamental change.
The Electoral Commission, the supposed guardian of our voting rights, has been utterly spineless and has acted more as a nodding donkey than a brake on a powerful executive. Rather than applauding the most extreme form of compulsory voter ID (which has been outlawed in most US states) it may want to spend its time more fruitfully expediting the outstanding (and now strangely silent) inquiries into overspending by several Tory parliamentary candidates at the last general election.
The blunt truth, too, is that the Labour frontbench have been pretty hopeless in challenging these restrictions on our voting rights. For many, it seems that the proposed reduction in the number of MPs is an opportunity to settle political scores and the response to compulsory voter ID has been incoherent (what is the party policy response? Who is the responsible shadow minister?). Let’s hope Labour in local government, who will have to bear the brunt of these legislative changes and the undoubted legal challenges from those eligible voters denied the right to vote, will be more robust in the opposition.
The real tragedy is that recent experience in the US presidential elections does show that our voting system is under threat from powerful forces – both in this country and overseas. It is time for parliament, through the appropriate select committees and a speakers convention, to take charge and restore faith in our democratic process.
————————————
Paul Wheeler writes on local politics and tweets @paulw56
————————————
It’s difficult for Labour to preach about democracy these days given last year’s #chickencoup antics of our Tory-lite wing. The ongoing Project Anaconda doesn’t help either.
I’ll bet that the onerous task of producing their I.D. hasn’t affected our youth’s willingness to buy booze.
There is voter fraud in the UK, people are losing faith in the democratic system, and something needs to be done about it.
Progress is against any solution because they approve of (what they see as) their captive communities not having to fall in with a normal and accountable democratic process.
The Conservative Party has form as long as its arm. Some areas have still never recovered from the mass deregistration that arose out of the Poll Tax. The only forms of official ID are driving licenses, which are not held by at least nine million adults, and ludicrously expensive passports, which are not held by 9.5 million. Those figures amount to one in five adults, overwhelmingly the poor.
At the 2015 General Election, 31 million votes were cast. There were only 26 cases of personation at a polling station, 27 cases of postal voting fraud, and 11 cases of proxy voting fraud. Fully six cases resulted in so much as a Police caution. Channel 4 News has, however, established a very strong case that the Conservative Party massively overspent in so many marginal constituencies that it is possible to travel from Land’s End to the Scottish Border without ever leaving the area of a Police Force that was now investigating this matter. Those investigations are very much ongoing. But they are never, ever mentioned by this country’s near-monopoly purveyor of news, the BBC.
As for identity cards, they have been the solution in search of a problem for at least 25 years. Although quite that level of wildly over-budget computerised chaos was too much even for the King of Wildly Over-Budget Computerised Chaos, Tony Blair. How would we identify ourselves when we first went along to collect our identity cards? Or when we first applied for them?
A confused and uncovincing argument. According to Mr Wheeler: ‘…all the international evidence suggests that a demand for expensive photographic evidence such as passports and driving licences discriminates against the poor and the young….’. What evidence? Just about every other European country operates a national ID card system (proposals to introduce one here were met with the usual ill-informed hysterical panic). This does not appear to affect in anyway whatsoever voter turnout or registration in these countries. This card also enables holders to prove entitlement to a number of other benefits and services, including travel throughout the Schengen area. The real question, which Mr Wheeler alludes to, is a more effective registration system, acceptable ID proof can already be provided easily by the large majority of the electorate and production of it is already a default for many everyday processes (e.g. collecting undelivered post), what is need is a solution for the remainder of the population, start with student IDs and bus passes, and abandon the hysteria and conspiracy talk.