Voter ID harms democracy so the Conservatives WILL roll it out, never mind the £20 million cost
It doesn’t matter how many organisations make common-sense arguments to stop the roll-out of voter ID checks.
The Conservatives are in trouble at the ballot box; they’re losing votes badly and need to stop Labour voters having a chance to exercise what should be their democratic right.
That is the reason the Tories have been claiming the voter ID pilot tests during the local elections in May were a glorious success, despite the fact that thousands of legitimate voters were denied access to democracy.
At just five constituencies, 3,981 voters were turned away. The total number of allegations of voter fraud in 2017 – out of a total of 45 million votes cast – was just 28.
There is no way of proving that there was anything wrong with the 3,981 voters who were turned away, so we can only accept that 28 possible instances of voter fraud are known to us.
This means that, at £20 million to roll it out across the UK, the cost to the taxpayer is £700,000 per allegation.
Considering the cost, and the effect on democracy, it’s no wonder the details were released right before Parliament went into summer recess, in a (failed, as usual) bid to hide the plan from the general public.
Labour’s Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement and Youth Affairs, Cat Smith, made the situation perfectly clear: “Wasting tens of millions of pounds on trying to make it harder for people to vote has got to be one of the most stupid ideas ever.”
It is stupid, but only because the Tories have been caught red-handed. But they are unlikely to care because it is unlikely that anybody else will be able to do anything about it.
… I wonder how this would affect the DUP’s vote, if rolled out in Northern Ireland? If it isn’t, of course, the corruption should be obvious to everybody.
Back to Ms Smith: “At a time when our public services are in crisis and thousands of families are having to rely on foodbanks to stave off hunger, it is staggering that the Tories think that they can justify these undemocratic and unaffordable plans,” she added.
“Local authority election teams are already facing huge financial pressures after eight years of extreme Tory cuts and the government has no plans to address these concerns.”
All true.
Back in May, when I wrote about this following the local elections, I stated: “If the Conservatives go ahead with this, based on the evidence we’ve seen, we’ll know they are trying to nobble democracy.”
And we do know, don’t we?
Ministers are facing calls to ditch plans for nationwide voter ID checks as it emerged introducing them at a general election could cost up to £20m – even though there were only 28 cases of polling station impersonations alleged in 2017.
The government has been urged to abandon the contentious proposals, with the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) pointing out that at this rate, the cost could equate to £700,000 per fraud allegation.
Labour has claimed the moves are in danger of locking people out of the democratic process, and critics fear it could disproportionately affect ethnic minorities and the poorest.
It comes after ministers vowed to press ahead with plans to extend trials of the scheme, despite hundreds of people being turned away from the ballot box during tests in several locations during May’s local elections.
Details of the potential cost, which includes the price of hiring and training extra staff to carry out the identification checks, were set out with little fanfare in a Cabinet Office paper released ahead of the summer recess.
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i love the comment it stupid, it is not it is called tory.they like doing stupid things, they cannot actually spend any money on anything that needs to be spent on, they instead spend it on things that are a waste of public money, high time we got rid of this kind of waste and made it accountable. we could start with the accountability by holding to account the seven ugly liars on the big red bus of lies, what a waste of money that lot was, next they be telling us universal credit is working okay and atos, capita and maximus are the best thing this country ever has seen
Tories hate democracy. They would like a one-party state, just as long as they are the one party. This is simply corrupt gerrymandering dressed up as security.
Although I was against the notion of photo ID cards in the past, I’d happily have one if it becomes a requirement to vote as long as the government pays for it. That £20m the Tories have just wasted on that ridiculous ID pilot would have gone a long way to give voters a pukka “photo voter ID card”. There are many who like me, don’t have photo driving licences nor passports. Anyway, why aren’t Poll Cards sufficient ID?
As we have seen in the United States, this is really about vote suppression rather than countering fraud.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/how-voter-id-laws-discriminate-study/517218/
The government has claimed that photo ID is required to collect parcels from the post office. This is blatantly untrue as I have done so using a bank card which bears no photo.
I don’t have a problem with voter ID per se, after all democracy matters unless you are a dictator or EU commissioner, but it is unlikely that the government can produce a system that can not be out thought by anyone determined enough to vote more than once.
I doubt the DUP would worry, NI has required voter ID for many years and provides ID cards free of charge for that purpose.
Thanks for that information.
In that case, the DUP should be telling the Conservatives to install the same system. Why has that not happened?