New proposals for voter identification.

Savvy

Alegrias1 all of the UK immigration works the same way, they are given help to understand how to live here.

Don't I know it.

England still isn't the UK though.

You don’t have to ‘pop’ along to the Council Offices, you could
Run there, walk there or skip there, but you can get there which is the main thing.?

? I don't care how you get there, get there if you can. ?

And if you can't its your own fault. Such empathy.

So no. I can’t imagine any reasonable reason why getting a card is so unacceptable. I’m unconvinced by your reasoning.
I’m still waiting to find out which of my rights are being infringed by having to have proof of who I am.
I do understand that some people have reasons for not wanting to be obliged to get photo ID and I deal with some, who would object to having to get photo ID at the same time as they are willing to apply for a passport because it suits them.

But then you’re right. I don’t live the life where officials are going to burst into my house and demand proof of whether or not I have the right to be in the UK.
Perhaps if I lived that life, I’d want some ID to prove that I am allowed to be here.
If it entitled me to vote, so much the better.

I’m unconvinced by your reasoning.

I am surprised. Its a mystery to me how people can be so oblivious to the lives and travails of their fellow man. You live and learn I suppose.

I’m not oblivious, I just don’t think you’re right.

?

Some people don't think I'm right that the world is round, either.

Actually the earth is not round. A more accurate description is an irregularly shaped ellipsoid but even that isn’t quite right as it changes shape. Look it up Alegrias if you don’t believe me - I know you will anyway.

Don't need to. I know an oblate spheroid when I see one. You up for a chat on the regular precession of the orbital axis, or it that not covered on the front page of the NOAA website?

Alegrias1

Travellers.

People whose first language isn't English.

People who aren't sure they trust the government enough to ask them for an ID card.

People who are somehow disadvantaged and don't understand the necessity of getting a card or the rules about how to go about it.

Recent arrivals in this country who are entitled to vote but don't understand the system.

There's 5 groups, off the top of my head, without googling.

Doesn't matter if they are "ardent voters" or not. They certainly won't be ardent voters if we put barriers in their way.

Sorry to be picky…

Travellers? as they are travelling unless they have a fixed address which is on the electoral role they will not be registered to vote. Travellers, drive vans, four-by-fours to tow their homes etc ergo they will have driving licenses.

Our local Council and definitely London prints information leaflets in multiple languages for all sorts of things, public services, GP’s, hospitals etc. sorted!

People who are disadvantaged, there are so many agencies involved with disadvantaged families and the homeless, they have to be able to prove who they are to access the benefit system, obtain temporary housing I would have thought they know were the local Council offices are.

If recently arrived folks are allowed to vote, the clue is recently arrived they would have a passport, visas etc. Unless of course they were migrants/refugees in which case it will be a long time before voting is allowed in Council Elections, and as for General Elections you have to be a British Citizen and that takes time and money. By the time they have been dealing with all the red tape that this involves, popping along to the Council office will be easy as pie.

I am not dismissive of my of the people in the circumstances above, just pointing out that the problems areas you pointed out are in most circumstances not problems, nor are the insurmountable.

Sorry Alegrias I couldn’t resist. Apparently there are now a load of people out there who believe the earth is flat and are trying to prove it - good luck to them! At least I didn’t say that.

The only season I am concerned with at the moment is the football season as a Club Secretary.

I am tempted, 25Avalon, to ask about the shape of your balls...

Alegrias!! My hub went down - it must have been embarrassed!
Reminds me of when dd did her football referee’s course and they wanted to know details of the ball. She omitted to tell them it is round whereas in rugby it is oval or spheroid.

I do like a good subject change, even if
it’s your best effort at sarcasm. It’s coffee break now and I just thought I’d let you know I’ve shared your posts with the wider world of work.

At what point to we cross the line to victimisation, ridicule and personal attack?

I guess we'll see. I'll pull on my big girl pants and ride it out....

Alegrias1

At what point to we cross the line to victimisation, ridicule and personal attack?

I guess we'll see. I'll pull on my big girl pants and ride it out....

I dislike personal attacks, totally unnecessary.

Discuss the points and agree to disagree is what I aim for, if I fail I apologise wholeheartedly.

Victimisation? I presume you mean by me. I’ve shared your points to open them up to further discussion. How is that victimisation?

Savvy

Alegrias1 all of the UK immigration works the same way, they are given help to understand how to live here.

I have a 75-year old German friend who came to the UK when she was 17 and worked in the NHS all her life.

She has been in tears over the process of trying now to achieve settled status and the unreasonable demands of the government.

She had, just pre-Covid, to cancel a long-planned trip to see her grandchildren - within the country, not even abroad - because the government were not happy with the file she submitted and told her that, if she didn't resubmit within a week, she had to start the whole process all over again.

The documents that they were asking for were government-issued (one was proof of her NHS pension, for example) and were easily available with the click of a computer in the Home Office. In fact it would have been easier for them to obtain them internally than to write back and tell her to post them.

Stories like this are being repeated up and down the country; people are not given help to understand anything - obstacles are thrown in their way.

It is assumed that the voter id cards will be provided and paid for by local authorities, so good luck with that! If it anything like dealing with our local planning office who are either off sick or on leave or simply understaffed, then we will need a 3 year advance warning of a general election! How long will be needed to process said voter id forms? Will voter id provided by one local authority be recognised by another? Or will it be like during the early days of the DBS debacle when each local authority insisted on their own search being done, thus when my DD was applying for teaching jobs she had multiple applications in the system. Too many things to go wrong to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Oh FFS! Postal voting will still be available - you do not, and will not, need photo ID for that! There are millions of people who do not bother to vote, regardless of needing ID, I don't have a great deal of sympathy for them. I support the Australian method of voting being compulsory, or having to pay a fine. People died to get us the vote - I consider it a civic duty, its a shame that some people do not.

Postal voting will still be available - you do not, and will not, need photo ID for that!

Oh that's ok then. How silly of us to be worrying about disenfranchising the electorate when all they need is a postal vote. ?

If someone made voting compulsory I would not vote and would be prepared to go to prison for it.

The essence of democracy is that you can choose to participate in the same way you can chose which party to support. Compulsory voting is the death of democracy.

There is neglible voter fraud in the UK. We have some of the cleanest elections in the world. Any voter fraud that does occur, occurs round postal voting where people with postal votes have their ballot forms filled in by others, or are supervised while they complete them. Photo ID will do nothing to stop that.

M0nica If voting was compulsory I’d vote, but I vote anyway without compulsion.

If everyone HAD to vote it wouldn’t change the cries of ‘the outcome is not fair’ from the losing side but the statisticians could spend more time analysing the whole country’s voting figures and blaming the young/old/poor/ working class/ upper class/ male/female/ethnicity etc. for whichever outcome is least popular instead of doing that and then estimating which way the missing voters might have voted.

At our stage of life, going to prison wouldn’t affect your job chances the way it would for younger people, but it would ensure you benefit from a tiny share of your taxes to keep you there. It would also get you some visible publicity.

Alegrias1

We've had this debate on here before. That's not a criticism, because its so important and we should talk about it a lot.

So, here's my prediction for what will happen.

People will come along and tell us that other countries do it, that most people have photo id anyway, that its a real problem that we have to put a stop to and - best of all - if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear.

I do wonder if there will be an overlap between the people who wanted us to take back control and those who want to control who gets to vote.

In answer to your question GillT57, yes its a threat to democracy. What can we do about it?

Why do you think anyone wants to control who gets the vote? Free ID is to be offered to the very few who don’t already have it.