10 million could be denied the vote under “scandalous” Tory plans
Almost 10 million Britons will be denied a vote from December 1 because of a rushed Tory overhaul of the electoral system, campaigners warn.
A huge shake-up will see one in five people left off official records – and stopped from deciding who runs their town hall and country, Hope Not Hate said.
The organisation said the reform, which the Conservatives have brought forward by a year, is “a national scandal”.
It has launched a drive to raise awareness of the new individual electoral registration system, which comes into force in just five weeks and will see millions lose their say.
The Electoral Commission is recommending peers vote against the timetable change when it is debated in the Lords tomorrow because it fears people will be disenfranchised.
Source: 10 million could be denied the vote under “scandalous” Tory plans – Mirror Online
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George Bush and Robert Mugabe would be proud.
Appreciate the Tories have only got this term to screw this country but their pace and determination to alienate the real voting public beggars belief. Hopefully the electorate will make a mental note when the voting scribe is in their hands…maybe that’s why the dirty stuff is being rolled out first and that time will heal the democratic wounds. The public and local government cut backs have not helped. Moving to this level of voting granulation surely must make the administration and costs of this exercise far more expensive and more likely to introduce apathy especially in the younger voters.
Penrose is my MP.
Before the election, when canvassing the electorate, I asked him about foodbanks. He said he was ‘quietly horrified’ by the situation. Not horrified enough to care though, obviously.
The Tories know that specific sectors of the electorate are more likely to respond to this change than others. They, in my view rightly, believe that there will be a tendency for more Tory supporters to register than those who vote for other parties. This blatant gerrymandering has got to be illegal under international law.
It is worth remembering that the individual voter registration legislation was passed by the Labour government in 2009 due to claims of voter fraud. There was always a timetable and a deadline set. This is not a Tory plan.
Are you certain? My recollection is that this was the only part of the Tory gerrymandering package that made it into law after the Liberal Democrats blocked boundary changes because the Tories had blocked changes to the House of Lords.
It was the Electoral Commission that wanted the change in 2003. Labour went ahead in 2009, but suggested that it should be compulsory from 2015 at the earliest. The coalition legislated to speed up the process in 2014 I think.
Only partially correct. The Electoral Commission had been pushing for the change, but Labour had resisted it – apart from in Northern Ireland, where it was part of the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002.
I was right – it was the Conservative-led Coalition Government that introduced Individual Electoral Registration to the rest of the UK. It was in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act of 2013.
This would explain why Labour has been set dead against this for as long as I’ve known about it. You’ll notice that it’s Labour that is campaigning to ensure that everybody is registered to vote who should be; the Tories have sat on their thumbs – a clear indication that they are hoping people will fail to register.