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Voter ID pilot Schemes

I'd suggest the biggest impact will be on the old. Mum, aged 88, has never had a passport and has thankfully given up her driving licence. As her short term memory is not good I regularly have to search the house to find and file the relevant council tax, utility bills so I can lay my hands on them when she needs them. Given that she loses her Credit Card about twice a year issuing her an ID card would be pointless.


I think that one point is that, unlike in the past, any ID card system should have an easy online reference that can be checked. Most passports and official certificates that i hold have e-versions that are used by the authorities (I assume that, for example, UKBA can flash up a scan of your current passport when you show your paper version). Your forgetful oldie will thus be visually recognised when a transaction is required, so retention of the card itself may not be vital.

In the case of polling, it shouldn't be a major challenge (self-inflicted data laws apart) for a voting ward to be issued on a device the set of e-IDs that match its voter list. Currently they receive a written list of registered voters that someone has had to extract and print off. It'd probably be even quicker to download an electronic file for use.
 
Presumably during those 10 years they won't need to pay any taxes? Not taxation without representation. Caused quite a big kerfuffle a while ago.

But they do have representation - wherever they live will have an MP.

"no taxes without representation" was about not having a representative in parliament.
 
Everything you do is recorded anyway and I mean everything, so they might at well issue ID cards,
IE, I was away from home dog sitting and the people we sit for ring every day so a mobile phone
is needed, Mrs forgot the changer so bought another phone [cheaper than a charger],
Three years later I am on a government website and they asked me a series of questions
one of which was "In the last 5 years have you bought a mobile phone"
 
Is this a problem that needs solving? In America, to listen to the noise, this had become a huge issue even before Trump. However, there is vanishingly little evidence that it is actually a problem: the number of proven voter fraud cases is extraordinarily small

The issue is more fraught in the USA because some parts of the country have a prior history of using ID specifications,property tax qualifiers, literacy or other qualifying tests, Poll taxes and other dodges to prevent the non-reflective members of the population registering to vote... Indeed they even had to amend the national constitution (24th Amendment) to stop tax payments being used to disbar voters..
 
When you have a situation like Tower Hamlets you know there is a problem, that police are needed at every polling station with cameras, extra training and instructions to ensure only English is spoken around the polling stations I am not sure why any one would complain about showing some form of ID.

Police investigate new fraud claims over Tower Hamlets poll

Police get anti-fraud election training

Police 'failed' in election fraud probe

Either this or we descend in to third world politics in certain areas of the country.
 
Rrrrrriiiiiiggght.

So you're looking to sell your case to the Borders Agency (or whatever they're called this week) as an upstanding person who the UK really needs. And first thing you do is not pay taxes?

Anyone else see a snag with this?

Anyone who is paying taxes is entitled to a say in how those taxes are spent. In this country we do that by allowing them to choose who represents them in local and general elections. No taxation without representation.
 
When you have a situation like Tower Hamlets you know there is a problem, that police are needed at every polling station with cameras, extra training and instructions to ensure only English is spoken around the polling stations I am not sure why any one would complain about showing some form of ID.

Police investigate new fraud claims over Tower Hamlets poll

Either this or we have descended into third world politics in certain areas of the country.

Minor edit needed there.
 
How it works...
I have a green barcoded ID book.
This is NOT mine.
id-01.jpg

On voting day, I head to the polls, show the book, they stamp it with the date.
They check my listing on the (paper) voter's roll, and tick it off.
I have to put my thumb under a scanner, which picks up fluorescent traces.
Then they mark my thumbnail with special pen.
I get my ballot papers, and head to the booth to do the X thing.

On the ID thing, it is compulsory to carry your drivers license at all times when driving.
drivers-body_557aa68ce127b.jpg

Credit Card size.

Now, I like being able to prove who I am if asked.
Human Rights types bleat and moan, saying "I ain't done nuffing wrong!"
I'm the opposite - "Here you go, officer/bank clerk/airline check-in staff etc... this proves it is me. I have nothing to hide."
 
Everything you do is recorded anyway and I mean everything, so they might at well issue ID cards,

You only have to look at the recent Facebook farce to support your point.
Plus things like various Clubcards and loyalty cards.
The lives of most people are the proverbial open book; whether you want it or not.
 
Not convinced, you underestimate the actual effect of policies like this. How they are meant to work is one thing, how they actually work in practice is usually quite different.

1. By default, any initiative which seeks to tighten ID requirements is going to cut some people out - otherwise what is the point. The question is how many, and whether it will be the right people.

2. You seem to be assuming that the system will work as described or intended (e.g. if people can have X number of types of ID, then it is all fine). This is not how systems actually work, particularly govt initiatives like this. Usually they fail to work in some way, often quite predictably. As an example, after the tightening of bank rules I have found it consistently difficult to do basic things or make new accounts because my habitation record is non-standard...which started because I was in the Army, and moved every year for 5 years.

2. Is this a problem that needs solving? In America, to listen to the noise, this had become a huge issue even before Trump. However, there is vanishingly little evidence that it is actually a problem: the number of proven voter fraud cases is extraordinarily small (see analysis here[/url). You can argue that successful fraud goes undetected, but equally I could argue that our elections are being infiltrated by the Illuminati and thetans and Illuminati thetans. Initiatives should generally try to address actual problems, and problems need some evidence that they are a problem. Voter ID policies are quite possibly a solution in search of a problem.

3. Also in America, several studies have found that voter ID laws [url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/the-trump-voter-fraud-commissions-data-problem/539547/]do suppress minority turnout disproportionately
. I suspect that Labour are probably just jumping on that bandwagon by immediately assuming the same is true here, when it is not at all clear that the same effect would happen here because the social system and position of minorities in the UK is very different to black/white issues in much of the US. But it is not a totally unreasonable question to try and answer. Moreover, the more likely effect is that it would suppress voting among poorer and younger people, who are generally more likely to vote Labour, so you can see their interest (and also that of the Conservatives).

I've been refused voting registration several times (for broadly the reasons described in no. 2). My sins are a) I was in the Army, so don't have a 'normal' and consistent habitation and voter registration record, and b) that I work abroad a lot and so have not always been able to turn up in person, or had an address that I could prove I was resident at (e.g. living with girlfriend when in the UK, but my name is not on her household documents). This has even applied, hilariously, to disallowing me from nominating a proxy to vote...when inability to turn up is the whole point of nominating a proxy!

So despite being a citizen since birth, paying taxes in the UK, and having served in the Army, my right to vote has apparently become questionable, because I sit between the boundaries of what the registration system finds easy to understand. People can easily be disenfranchised by these kinds of policies, the question is whether voter fraud is a big enough problem to take that risk. I've seen no evidence that it is.[/url]


The point is to make sure non citizens do not get to vote, which they do in places like California and New Mexico. Which do impact National elections. In Wyoming Non Citizens are marked as such on their ID card or Drivers license. Illegals are refused service.
 
Today Guardian has an article about the upcoming Voter ID pilots in May. Basically they are suggesting they are racist as producing ID for voting might be a bit hard for non whites.

Tories in new race row over identity checks for elections


Given the list acceptable forms of photo ID or if they are not available you can use supporting documents, I get the feeling Labour are being very condescending to ethnic minorities.

Voter ID Pilots

If I am reading the criteria for forms of voting ID correctly, you either have to have lived off the grid your entire life or just not be legally allowed to vote to be refused a ballot paper under this scheme.

Basically, it is the same criteria for picking up parcel from the post office.

Have the Guardian finally lost it or is it the begining of a National ID card?
Labours sh*tting a brick over this. Or do you think that there really are 35 labour votes registered at an individual address for the purifiers of postal voting?
 
I'd suggest the biggest impact will be on the old. Mum, aged 88, has never had a passport and has thankfully given up her driving licence. As her short term memory is not good I regularly have to search the house to find and file the relevant council tax, utility bills so I can lay my hands on them when she needs them. Given that she loses her Credit Card about twice a year issuing her an ID card would be pointless.


So, cos of one old dear, we all bin the concept?..... seems fair.
 
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