#LocalElections2023: how #VoterID discriminates against the disabled
The ballot box: why does the government want to make voting a health hazard for people who are already sick and/or disabled?
Sick and disabled people and/or their carers may be endangered by the Tory government’s new “Voter ID” demands, which require them to take off their face masks and be (potentially) exposed to Covid-19.
Take a look at this tweeted question to the Electoral Commission, and the response it triggered:
Hello, if you wear a face covering for any reason, you will be asked to remove it so polling station staff can check your ID looks like you. If you have any questions you may wish to contact your Returning Officer. Find out more: https://t.co/kJmbB4eh0R
— Electoral Commission (@ElectoralCommUK) April 19, 2023
Representatives of sick and disabled people have responded strongly:
The Electoral Commission confirm that even extremely clinically vulnerable and disabled people will have to remove their face masks if voting in person. We will be asking them for their EEA and to issue guidance that ID checks are done outside for CV people. https://t.co/3q9O8xgw8Z
— Buckinghamshire Disability Service BuDS (@BuDs_UK) April 19, 2023
So clinically vulnerable people may ask for their identity to be checked in the open air. But they still have to take their masks off.
Some of them are going to be put off voting by this stricture – and that means the new “Voter ID” rules are disenfranchising UK citizens:
.@VotePursglove How on earth as this been allowed to happen. Disenfranchising sick and disabled people by not putting in place reasonable adjustments for voting is totally unacceptable! @vickyfoxcroft @Debbie_abrahams @AppgCoronavirus @DisabilityAPPG #LocalElections2023 pic.twitter.com/pLqzt7vlKA
— Judy Hamilton (@secretspartacus) April 20, 2023
If this election was being used to pilot “Voter ID”, then it might be understandable, but it has been tested several times already and this sort of problem should have been cleared up. One can only surmise that the discrimination against the sick and disabled is intentional.
Is it worth demanding change from the Electoral Commission, or the government?
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The whole thing is about Voter Suppression. They’re taking the route used by the US Republican party. They do the same thing.
They will just say that you can use a postal vote instead. However I’m not actually sure that I trust the integrity of postal votes to get to the right place and actually be counted.