Six million people fall off electoral register due to ‘lackadaisical’ councils
Local councils have been failing to check voter lists by making door-to-door visits – leading to a loss of no less than six million people from the electoral register, the BBC has reported.
This is before a new system comes into operation that will require people to put themselves on the register individually, rather than being registered as part of a household. This has been designed by the Coalition government and it is widely believed that it will discourage people who are not Tories or Lib Dems from registering – effectively rigging elections in favour of the ruling parties.
In addition, it is widely believed that the public in general is losing faith in democracy after being forced to put up with one government after another who have sidled into office with a minority of the vote – most people have voted against them. These governments have then imposed policies that have sucked prosperity from those who rely most heavily on the state for support, handing ever more cash and power to people who have too much of it already. The leaders of the Coalition government (the Conservative Party) were supported by around 29 per cent of the electorate in 2010 (although not all of the electorate voted).
In the light of this, it seems unfair to penalise our already put-upon councils for failing to go door-to-door – the Coalition has contrived to suck resources away from councils, meaning fewer officers are being asked to do much more work, and electoral matters could be deemed easy to sideline in favour of more pressing issues.
The story mentions Mid Devon Council, whose chief executive said he did not believe house-to-house canvassing was an effective use of resources when budgets were being cut.
So the electoral roll dwindles, faith in democracy stutters, leaving zealots to vote in the worst possible governments.
Is there an alternative?
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Reblogged this on sdbast.
Definitely an alternative! If you pay council tax you should be entitled to vote. Then we need to make our demands clearly and only vote for those who will agree to push through the necessary reforms and if they do not we then recall them and unfrock them!
Much more accountability which really is up to us!
Why not get a proper secure site and then let people vote online? It would take time and trouble to make it hack proof, but it would increase the voting total. Or make a law that people have to vote like in Australia?
How about a new wrinkle on the classic “No taxation without representation”? Make it illegal to tax anyone over voting age if they’re not on the electoral register?
That should be in force anyway.
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Mike analyses the way the Tories and their Tory Democrat lap-dogs have gerrymandered the electoral process by denying councils the money to carry out the checks required under the new electoral system. Quite apart from the fact that the system itself will deter those not Tory or Lib Dems from voting. You knew the Tories never took democracy very seriously, but this seems to be active proof that the Lib Dems have turned their back on the legacy of John Stuart Mill.
hmm Mike seem to have lost my abusive reply to you into the ether:
stating that the party supporters would just deregister then reregister pre election to avoid tax. I also said I never put you down for being a right wing neoliberal tax dodger :P Obviously joking ( I hope)
That could be accommodated with a condition that you have to have been resident here for a particular period of time, I expect.
As for your previous reply – no. Haven’t seen it – but you’re right, I’m not a right-wing neoliberal tax dodger.
Reblogged this on UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR.
Women all over England are taking themselves off the electoral roll on purpose because of moral theft of state pension at 60 from 2013, when women MPs kept pension payout if 60 from 2012.
And what good would that do? All they would be doing is depriving themselves of the ability to get rid of the people who did this to them.