Thursday, 29 April 2010

Don't forget your photographic ID on 6 May!

See over at the El Comm website.

OK, it only applies to Northern Ireland this time round, but give it a year or two...

My latest blogpost: Don't forget your photographic ID on 6 May!Tweet this! Posted by Mark Wadsworth at 00:23

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10 comments:

13th Spitfire said...

I must say that I am very knew to this whole business (first time voter) but to me it seems perfectly clear that voters should identify themselves to avoid fraud?

I have missed something in the translation it seems. Could one please elucidate?

29 April 2010 at 01:15
Mark Wadsworth said...

13, until a few years ago, you didn't have to identify yourself in any way shape or form when you voted.

If you had your polling card, great, it saved them a few seconds' work finding your name on the list, but if you'd forgotten it, you just told them your name and address and they gave you a ballot slip and crossed you off the list.

Which always amazed me, but the thing worked - the number of people brazen enough to rock up at a polling station and pass themselves off as somebody else was barely measurable.

It was only since the advent of mass postal voting that electoral fraud really took off in this country, and using ID cards is neither going to improve matters nor solve the underlying problem of postal vote fraud.

The slightly more cynical view is that they are desperately scratting round for excuses to introduce ID cards (because they have promised their backers in the big consultancies loads of public money and somehow have to justify it).

29 April 2010 at 01:27
TheFatBigot said...

I was going to say that Mr W, but you beat me to it.

The one aspect in which I differ is that it has never amazed me that there are so few cases of what I believe is known as "personation" - pretending to be someone else in order to use their vote.

I suspect a combination of factors comes into play such as general law-abidingness, a feeling that a vote is a piece of very special personal property, fear of prosecution (personation is a crime) and knowledge that one extra vote will have no real significance in almost all constituencies. Unlike theft of a mobile phone or a twenty quid note, the thief receives no direct benefit from personation so the temptation is less.

More important than all of that is that the existing system is an example of the little people being trusted by the State rather than having to prove they are not cheating. This is what worries me about introducing ID checks, whether photo ID or just a bank card or gas bill. It shifts the emphasis, it makes us answerable to the State before the State will allow us to do the very thing that gives the State legitimacy. At the moment the State is entirely beholden to us on election day, ID checks reverse that position.

29 April 2010 at 05:05
Mark Wadsworth said...

TFB, it didn't amaze me that it worked (for the reasons you give); it amazed me that 'they' trusted us.

29 April 2010 at 07:16
DBC Reed said...

@TFB
Little people being trusted by the State?You're having a laugh.Every time you vote,you're given a numbered slip and the council official (gladly clocking up some overtime)writes your name on a counterfoil with the same number.So they can check how you voted.
I researched all this years ago for a magazine article that got spiked.Some of the things Returning Officers were saying were horrific.
I would prefer an ID card if it meant no numbered counterfoils at elections.
Also should n't all you xenophobes be keen on some such way of dreadul foreigners' ID's being checked up so freeborn Englishmen can pursue their lawful business: putting up property prices; resisting the land tax and rounding up public servants for the final solution of the public sector /parasites problem?

29 April 2010 at 07:46
James Higham said...

It's where we're headed.

29 April 2010 at 08:56
Pogo said...

You seem to have forgotten the old Irish saying... "Vote early, vote often.". :-)

29 April 2010 at 10:03
Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, a returning officer (or whatever they are called) told my Mum exactly that when I was small, and I did bring up the topic (here or elsewhere) but somebody else came up with a good argument why it could not be true.

PS, proper Home-Owner-Ists actually like a bit of inwards immigration, as they can get their extensions built cheaper and more people -> higher rents and prices.

JH, indeed. I'd put money on it.

P, under the old system it was hardly possible (see TFB's comment above).

29 April 2010 at 10:09
DBC Reed said...

Never heard the story that the raffle ticket voting system (your name on the stub) is n't true.Its true enough.You can see the geezer filling in your details on the numbered stub as you stand there. When challenged the cover story is that the system is never used(to check on individual voters) ,so that's alright then.But it is used to check out on mass ballot box stuffing,that I was told.
There was a long thread of correspondence in The Guardian about it a few years after my story was spiked which was particularly annoying as the magazine involved would pay (somewhat haphazardly).
After writing the above,realised that you had covered the story before.You're right.
Come to think of it: in cases of personation they must have to trace ineligible tickets.
BTW my father ,a traditional post-war Tory (would now be centre left) turned up to check the troops when he was standing in a local election , cried Vote early vote often and was officially reprimanded.He did know the law on "treating" though which he said forbade him buying anybody a drink during the election. Family included.

29 April 2010 at 10:46
Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, the punchline to the story told to my mother (and I have no reason to doubt the lady's word, who was one of the Tory canvassers) was that they knew exactly who had voted and for whom.

29 April 2010 at 10:54

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