Would You like a feature Interview?
All Interviews are 100% FREE of Charge
During the pandemic, many of us were used to checking our government’s online Covid “dashboards” almost daily. When Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance held a press conference, detailed digital data accompanying their slides showed the latest cases, vaccinations, hospitalizations and, sadly, deaths. was
Since January, we’ve had a new dashboard that provides an invaluable public service. This is the current total number of people who have applied for a “Voter Certificate” (VAC) that will allow them to participate in the local elections this May. .
The certificate was devised by the government to help the estimated 2 million people who won’t be able to vote this spring because they don’t have the necessary photo ID such as a passport or driver’s license. Free-form identification.
Under the highly controversial new regulations created by Boris Johnson and enacted by Rishi Snack, you will be denied if you show up at the polls on May 4th without the correct identification. For the first time ever, it will be a case of “no ID, no voting”.
Critics have long warned that the new rules are a completely disproportionate attempt to prevent voter fraud. It is true that you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be convicted of “impersonation” of using a ballot box by pretending to be someone else.
Sam Power, a lecturer in corruption analysis at the University of Sussex, said the current legislation “has caused Covid levels in the population to become so low that it suddenly puts a huge amount of resources into effective tracking and tracing, ensuring that everyone is scanned.” It’s kind of like I had to.” at the pub’. Given the low level of fraud, it is “a resource mismanagement and should not be prioritized”.
Unfortunately for ministers, the new dashboard shows that voter verification is currently at low penetration. Of the 2 million people who do not have the required ID, he applied for less than 1%.
Young people in particular are less likely to be hired, but the worst is the elderly. Among those over 75, he had only 581 applicants across England as of Thursday this week.
The figures for all ages are pretty poor. He has only 68 days until the election, but at the current signup rate, it will take him 10 years to provide voting credentials to everyone who needs them. Instead of cataloging the deaths of Covid, this VAC dashboard of his highlights the slow death of democracy in the eyes of some critics.
One reason is that it is not advertised at all, but another reason is that the process is Internet driven. As we’ve written before, millions of seniors don’t have computers or smartphones. Online systems exacerbate the injustices that can disenfranchise many, as seniors are much less likely than the rest of the population to have passports or driver’s licenses.
Age UK has expressed concern over digitally excluded people being electorally excluded. Ministers say they want to make it possible for people without computers to obtain voter certificates, but the government has yet to release statistics on those who apply offline.
Other groups are also upset. The Royal Society of the Blind has warned that 13% of blind and partially sighted people who already suffer from the barriers to voting secretly do not have photo ID.
Despite dire data, the government has rejected a last-minute plea from lawmakers to suspend voter ID plans. Community minister Lee Lowry, who was dragged before the House of Commons for pressing questions on policy development, reiterated that this was all about protecting “the integrity and sanctity of the ballot box.” .
Raleigh did his best to defend the plan and took steps to dispel what he deemed a “myth” about it. , in response to criticism that the Oyster 60+ card counted as valid voting ID, he argued that photo documentation, such as a passport, was required to qualify for senior citizen cards, but not for student cards. He said he didn’t need to qualify. .
But the normally shrewd operator seemed to drop the ball when he told Labor MP Nick Smith that “it is not right to perpetuate this 2 million figure”. However, estimates of the number of people who do not have the correct photo ID are based on Cabinet Office research. Worse, that same survey found that “a significant proportion (42%) of respondents without photo ID are unlikely or very likely to apply for a special voter card document that allows them to vote. It was found that the answer was low to
Rowley said “a number” of the 2 million people will not hold elections this year as not all regions of the UK hold local elections. He then nearly hinted that it didn’t matter, because “some people will choose not to vote, but we want them to.”
“Ultimately, it’s up to people to decide whether or not to get a voter certificate. I encourage them to do so. I hope they do, but ultimately, How it is done is the choice of the citizens involved,” the minister said. I felt that it sounded like
Rowley took a stronger position when he pointed out that in 2010 the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conducted a review of the UK elections and recommended “more robust mechanisms” to prevent impersonation. bottom. The UK should follow the example of Northern Ireland, where voter ID was introduced in 2002 to curb sectarian voter fraud.
It’s also true that the Independent Electoral Commission pushed for the introduction of voter ID in 2014, 2015 and 2016, declaring that the UK system “remains vulnerable to identity fraud”. However, the committee also expressed its displeasure that the rules implementing the law had been enacted too late and were not ready for all the usual things that would actually take place on May 4th.
Commission chair John Pringer told lawmakers last October, “This policy should not make voting less accessible, but only on the basis that it should be enforceable. I will support you,” he said.
There are additional concerns that local council officials suddenly become cops and women in the electoral process. “When we ask everyone who comes to the polls to show an ID, the roles of the chief elector and the poll staff will be fundamentally different,” Pullinger said.
Crucially, those on the sharp edge tasked with enforcing the policy – the registrars, the bipartisan local government associations, the election commission – are all aware that the policy is being pushed too quickly. I warn you that
On the same day that Raleigh was attacked on the Commons, the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA), Peter Stanion, announced that despite the incredibly tight timescale, he is now in law. He stated that he was in a position to realize this.
But Stanion had issued a more worrying warning about the lack of time to assess the impact of the local election experiment ahead of next year’s general election. The possibility of introducing it across the UK for the first time in a general election would be much more risky,” he said.
The broader risks to the Tories are perhaps even greater. Already outraged by attempts at ‘voter suppression’ of people without ID – people unlikely to vote Conservative (young people, transients, poor people, minorities) That’s not all.
It’s not just that the people who turned their backs on the polls on May 4th may come back to vote against the government on the same day or in the next election.
The danger is that voter ID policies will inevitably lead many to question the outcome of the election itself. Local elections have low voter turnout, with many seats determined by a handful of votes, and in surrounding areas determining who runs city hall or not.
Imagine if national polls somehow failed to translate into the May election and Sunak got an unexpected boost in a key seat. Imagine if it were replayed on election night, with a large number of marginal forces in attendance.
There could be a very angry scene at the polling place if someone came to the polling place for the first time and realized they didn’t have the required photo ID. Among them, international observers and foreign media outlets could cast an uncomfortable spotlight on the long and impeccable history of fair elections.
Worst of all for Sunak, he somehow pulled it out of his bag and denied that Labor had an outright majority (or even won a majority), which contradicts the poll figures from a few days ago. In that case, his very success would be put into big question marks. that. The end result could taint not only our democracy, but even a small Tory victory.