OP
OP
Read the OP. They tried to turn away people even with the correct docs.
But no surprise you're in favour of anything that hurts minorities.
UK pilots voter ID laws in today's local elections. Goes as you'd expect.
- Thread starter Jackpot
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Read the OP. They tried to turn away people even with the correct docs.
But no surprise you're in favour of anything that hurts minorities.
I'd be astonished is someone posting here lives spending 50p a day on food. I also don't think you'd go far when your only sustenance is a bunch of noodles, every day of your life.
Yeah, like I said. Sounds crazy to me, since even the homeless drug addicts I've seen had ID here. I even admitted it's my limited experience.
BUT: £40 per election? Why, when an ID costs £15 and doesn't expire? Take those £15, divide it by all the elections an average adult can participate in, and you have a fee I'll gladly pay.
Tried, but weren't turned away.
Naturally this is the worst thing ever. Oh, they had to point to the guidelines that said their rail card was acceptible? And then they they said oh right sorry and let you vote? Better get on Twitter! The gestapo are coming!
How does the UK system as it is laid out discriminate against/hurt minorities in particular?
Even your poll card is accepted as a valid form of ID from the looks of things. The only people without poll cards are people not registered to vote anyway.
Im neither american nor british, but doing community service in different countries (not just America and Europe) I can tell you, a lot of people don't have the means to get them.
The lack of IDs and its use to play the system is not something new.
Ok I am sure they don't. But I am positive they do in Britain. Like the topic is about.
I mean we're talking about the very poor here, people scrapping by. Considering homelessness has doubled in the past decade. There's not an insgnificant number this applies to. Every day in the UK can I can get 5-8 people asking me for money. Things are not going well for a number of people here.
They went out of their way to spearhead a needless referendum that divided not only their own party structure, but the mood of the country in total, in an attempt to retain the more right-wing of their voting base - which on reflection was a moot task anyway given how UKIP have all but died in totality anyway. And then went onto throw away a sizeable majority of their own government in an election that didn't really need to happen there, and was only proposed as a way of suring up their majority in Parliament and popularity to the public ahead of Brexit.
Don't underestimate their ability to fuck themselves over.
Voter ID (Read:Suppression) efforts are almost always tied to efforts to reduce locations in which citizens can get those IDs and absurd fuckery as to the legitimacy of those items when the "wrong" people come to vote. it may not be that way where you are but that's how it's going in a lot of areas.
How are your programs supporting the homeless? Like, shelters, food, and so on.
For example, we got a program here where you can sign up to receive free food that is about to expire, donated by super markets.
I'm fully aware these ID checks are unnecessary and given a choice, I'd vote against them.
I just have a problem with the people citing cost, because even saving up 20p a day will get you to the 15 pounds necessary in less than 3 months.
Lack of documentation is the issue, is what stops people from getting these cheap IDs. Not the lack of money.
EDIT: It's also weird to me because as long as I can remember, we've needed ID in Austria
We are going to vote on stuff in pretold places, usually schools where there is around 10 people, each having own street or area and you must confirm via ID that that's you, then they scratch you of list of people in said area. Voted.
You go behind booth, pick by you selected person and throw that in box in front of everyone.
Talking to wind about how it's here in Czech rep.
You go behind booth, pick by you selected person and throw that in box in front of everyone.
Talking to wind about how it's here in Czech rep.
Northern Irish elections accept the aforementioned free electoral ID card, a drivers licence, passport or certain transport cards given to elderly or disabled people. The cost of a provisional drivers licence is £34 to apply for online, or £43 in the post.
What garbage, it's just a simple way of hadling elections. Everyone with a residency permit is registered to vote and get a card telling them where/when they can vote. You then go and ID yourself and then you vote.
The Netherlands are in Shengen where you need a valid ID by law anyway
But it's been like this for ages in Austria, for example. What are you basing this on?
I understand that voter fraud is way more of a non-issue than people might assume, but that doesn't make it not a bit odd that you can vote without any proof of identity. you need to prove your identity for everything, but not voting?
Is the problem really with requiring an ID or with the way IDs are obtained? I feel like they're separate issues.
Is the problem really with requiring an ID or with the way IDs are obtained? I feel like they're separate issues.
His US viewpoint. What happens there must happen everywhere.
Reality. Voter suppression efforts in the UK look exactly like those of the United States.
- Voter fraud isn't a real problem in the UK. The amount of fraudulent votes in the UK in 2017 was in the dozens. Same is true of the US.
- The efforts disproportionately suppress minority votes. Sounds familiar to anyone who follows this in the United States.
- Individual voter registration was made a requirement in 2015, preemptively suppressing votes among blocs that would generally vote Labour. Again, mirroring the United States rather than having automatic voter registration.
By all means, prove me wrong and show that voter fraud is a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed in the UK. I'll wait.
I don't have an issue with needing an ID card to vote, it's always been like this here. It wouldn't feel right to me otherwise tbh.
Of course they need to be easily obtainable but that's another issue.
Of course they need to be easily obtainable but that's another issue.
The problem is that any added effort added to the voting process discourages turnout. Sometimes this is fine, like you can't provide 1 voting booth per voter, so people have to stand in line. Other cases, like with voter ID, you're adding effort to the process to solve nothing. If an ID is not 1) Absolutely free and 2) Does not require any time spent on acquiring it, it's fine. However, if people have to take time off work (which they might not be able to get) to go acquire an ID from a potentially not-very-local source (like how it frequently pans out in the US, the place the Tories got the idea from), then it's going to have a dampening influence on voter turnout among people who might not have voted Conservative in the first place (the poor, students and the disabled are less likely to have acceptable forms of ID than others due to either not needing them or frequent movement rendering previously acceptable IDs invalid)
Like there's an example of a guy being turned away today because his ID with his picture on it from his local council isn't acceptable. This clearly isn't being done in the least intrusive and most well thought out way.
You said that ID'ing is voter repression, I say that that comes highly likely from your US viewpoint, am I right or wrong your are American?
All other countries that have it think it's normal. Just something that sounds reasonable. You make it an absolute. The 'hurdles' in the UK are minimal, everybody has some form of ID that is required, and if they don't they can get it easily and cheap. Is what I hear from the British posters in here.
I am curious, do they say this anywhere? Like pretty much everywhere in Europe you need ID to vote, why should they have gotten the idea from the US?
for context, previously the Tories messed with the voter registration system, also ostensibly for the sake of eliminating voter fraud but the only real effect was that it made it much harder for people who move around a lot, like students, to enrol. Guess who students don't vote for?
Yes, there are theoretical benefits to these measures but in practice it's a solution for a problem which doesn't really exist. You'd have to be pretty naive to believe that the possible 'unintended' side effects of excluding non-tory voters wasn't at least a consideration.
Yes, there are theoretical benefits to these measures but in practice it's a solution for a problem which doesn't really exist. You'd have to be pretty naive to believe that the possible 'unintended' side effects of excluding non-tory voters wasn't at least a consideration.
If the number of voters that don't turn out to vote because of this, or are turned away, are greater than the number of those are considered to have potentially commited voter fraud what do you consider calling that. We're talking about the benefits of the system in the UK. You can say how great of an idea it is in paper but if it leads to lower voter turn out then that's a net negative.
The issue is your talking about something you grew up with as normal. Have you looked at the stats inside your country of the number of cases of voter fraud recorded in your country before it was inacted and afterward and whether it had an effect on voter turnout?
If even one poorer, younger, marginalised, busier, less able, or merely less bothered voter (yes they count too) is disenfranchised by voter ID practices, then it's a win for the Tories. God knows they want to keep people away from the polls with the absolute fucking public shambles they have made of the past year.
That might be the case in the US. It is not the case here.
Access to officially recognised ID is cheap (as little as £15 or even free in certain circumstances) and easy in the UK (not even needing you to leave your own home, let alone visit a government office) and even in the absence of ID your polling card, that everyone registered to vote gets for free, is accepted.
In what way does that disproportionately suppress minority votes?
I have always viewed this as a partisan issue in the US. Republicans definitely use it to their advantage, but I also cannot see dems being so passionate about it if for some reason if no voter id would mean more republican votes in the end.
Russia has proved they can meddle in US elections, I think we need to come up with a solution that would provide free voter ID for all and find a way to ensure votes are counted as close to 100% accurately as possible.
Russia has proved they can meddle in US elections, I think we need to come up with a solution that would provide free voter ID for all and find a way to ensure votes are counted as close to 100% accurately as possible.
See the thing is your just making statements here. The reason why they can say confidently that Voter ID is used for voter supression is they have the stats to back it up. Saying it doesn't have an affect here doesn't mean as much (regardless of how unlikely such a thing happening there is) if you don't have the stats to back it up.
People are opposed to this because based on the statistics themselves Voter ID fraud is not a problem.
This just seems unnecessary and an inevitable way of getting less people voting. Last year I could just waltz into my polling station, say my name and address and boom I get a voting card. That convenience is one of the reasons I like to vote. All I need is myself.
Now you have to remember your ID. To be honest, I carry my ID most of the time because I look young or I have to prove who I am for work etc but many people I know don't carry it everywhere.
My older brother voted for the first time last year because he wanted to, he only has a passport for ID which my parents lock up for safe keeping so if this ID policy becomes law he probably won't bother to vote again as it's too much hassle.
A lot of older people only have old driving licenses without a photo so they'll also be turned down.
Now you have to remember your ID. To be honest, I carry my ID most of the time because I look young or I have to prove who I am for work etc but many people I know don't carry it everywhere.
My older brother voted for the first time last year because he wanted to, he only has a passport for ID which my parents lock up for safe keeping so if this ID policy becomes law he probably won't bother to vote again as it's too much hassle.
A lot of older people only have old driving licenses without a photo so they'll also be turned down.
The problem is the generalization.
Voter ID laws can and are absolutely used for voter suppression.
But there are many places with voter ID laws that have operated this way for decades. It's just the norm to have ID. That's the problem when someone says "Voter ID (Read:Suppression) efforts are almost always tied to efforts to reduce locations in which citizens can get those IDs". Big difference between "almost always" and "in many cases that I know of".
If someone wants to claim that voter ID goes hand in hand with removing the ability to get ID, they better back it up.
I had one of thise £15 ID's when I was younger. Barely got accepted in most bars, let alone meeting whatever standards have been set for these Poll stations.
You'll need a provisional, at least £34, and that's assuming a provisional alone even meets the standards.
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If the politicians pushing for voter ID cared enough they'd be OK with quick processing of voter registrations and quickly sending back a voter ID card for free. But instead it's all about the already existing yet not free or easy to obtain IDs and how costly setting up a new system would be. And if you don't have those IDs you're downplayed like your vote doesn't matter and demonized about how you came to be without ID and why you live that way. It's almost as if voters being accurately identified isn't the end goal
I mean the person who suggested that in the same post suggested that it may not always be the case. What this arguement circles back on is what are the benefits of voter ID laws for the populace? Is it worth introducing them in the UK for those benefits? If there are no benefits why is it being introduced?
There are plenty of things that we are used to because we are introduced to them at birth but that on it's own doesn't inherently make them beneficial over other options. Which is why when you espouse those benefits on someone else simply saying we'd had all our lives and it works well doesn't mean much. Showing scientifically the benefits means something.
Of course Voter ID's aren't always used with malicious intent but if your going to espouse it to other countries try to tell them what the benefits actually where to your country statiscally. Because if it did exactly what they feared it would do regardless of if there was malicious intent or not it's not going to convince them that it's a good idea.
Another horrifically racist law infects another host.
Yeah man, bootstraps etc. etc.!
They have stats from America.
What applies to America does not necessarily apply to the UK or anywhere else where the systems for getting ID are totally different. You don't have any stats to say it DOES discriminate against minorities in the UK, and given the ease of getting ID in the UK there likely won't be stats to say that unless there is a radical change in obtaining ID.
People here see "Voter ID" and immediately apply the American system to the rest of the world.
CitizenCard is now officially recognised as ID by the Home Office and airlines and is officially recognised as ID by the police.
True, but at the same time I have proposed different scenarios where all citizens are provided free voter ID cards to alleviate the issue you stated, but friends of mine who oppose any form of voter ID always reject them stating it would be a resolution to a problem which does not exist. That to me indicates they are more worried about losing votes than securing an outdated voting system.
With as many attempts as there are now to influence/rig elections from outside sources, ie Russia, I don't see why anyone should be against modernizing the voting system in a way that will not exclude poor people. I hope we can get that done as a country in a non-partisan way.
Yes, because voter fraud isn't a real problem. I voted 45 minutes ago, walked into the polling station, gave my name and address which they checked with their list to make sure I hadn't already voted. They gave me a ballot paper, I marked a couple of boxes, put the paper into a box and walked out.
The whole thing took less than a minute and that's the way it should be. It should be as easy and painless as possible to vote otherwise the public won't engage with a democracy.
Of course these measures tackling a virtually non-existent problem will target those least likely to vote Tory but I'm sure that's just a huge unintentional coincidence
I just voted an hour ago.
Walked in, signed in, filled my ballot, deposited it, and left.
It all took me less time than it did walking there.
No shit Tories don't want it to be that way.
Walked in, signed in, filled my ballot, deposited it, and left.
It all took me less time than it did walking there.
No shit Tories don't want it to be that way.
They still suggested it is "almost always" the case without a single source. France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Spain. Most of the EU, actually. These are countries that all require ID.
Which of them also make efforts to reduce locations in which citizens can get IDs? If it's not a vast majority, then have fun finding enough places to tell me that it is "almost always" the case.
I don't care about benefits, and if you read what I actually posted before, I think that voter ID laws are not necessary. My issue is this "it's like this for us, it is probably like this almost all the time" mindset that the poster is showing.
So no. I don't have to point out any benefits. This is not about benefits at all.
The person saying that, and I repeat, "Voter ID (Read:Suppression) efforts are almost always tied to efforts to reduce locations in which citizens can get those IDs", needs to show their sources, or be happy with having their claim disregarded as fiction.
It's a massive claim.
EDIT: Fixed your edit, which wasn't already in the quote. [are] -> [aren't]. Kinda thought it was a typo anyway.
We have stats in the UK. They're very similar. If anything it implies how great it is currently in the UK that there's minimal potential barriers to voting and has minimal voting fraud and as such voter ID's are not needed.
If your going to argue the this is anything other than uneeded bureacy and populism show me stats that show the benefits of requiring voter ID's.
I've not said there are benefits to voter IDs, I've said that the system of voter ID implemented in the UK does not discriminate against minorities, which it does not and nobody has explained how it does.
£15 for ID is a lot of money when we have a situation where even working families have to go to food banks just to put food on the table.
Because the UK is every bit as racist as America. We're just more polite about it.
Alright so let's ignore the fact that after I checked, CitizenCard isn't even on the list of accepted ID at these polling stations.
Instead I'll repeat that i had one of those cards. I know what they're like. They are next to worthless and the constant dodgy looks and back and forth with taking my ID to the manager every single time was the reason I even got my providional in the first place.
Single parents, with kids, living on barely a couple of hundred pounds a week on universal credit, getting constant bills from the council every week, aren't going to be spending money on worthless ID cards or passports that they're only going to use to vote with once a year.
This is a government have displayed many what they think of lower classes for the past decade in power and malicious dislike of minorities as shown in the Windrush scandal (and Theresa May has a laundry list of shockingly awful stories that about her time in the home office). So forgive for not giving this specific government the benefit of the doubt here.