Exclusive: All-party report on rules governing 2023 local elections calls voter ID system a ‘poisoned cure’
Just get a ID thats not discrimination.
Maybe read the article first - it’s about people who did have valid ID and still couldn’t vote (setting aside the wider problem that many people didn’t have ID because of the restricted list accepted - for example, old-age bus passes were accepted but under-25 bus passes were not).
They cite examples of BAME people being turned away from polling stations where white polling clerks wouldn’t accept that they were the same person pictured on their ID, and an immunocompromised person being turned away for failing to remove her mask.
All this to solve a problem of in-person voter fraud that is practically non-existent in the UK.
But those problems aren’t about ID then…
Those problems wouldn’t have existed at any previous UK election, because before last year there would have been no need to determine whether the person voting was the same person pictured. How is that not a direct consequence of the introduction of a photo ID requirement?
I get what you’re saying - that this is a racism issue not a voter ID issue. But, I think that if voter ID laws are to implemented then situations like these (where eligible voters are rejected because they don’t look like their photo) should be taken into account.
The article discusses a possible solution as widening the amount and type of ID that would qualify as a voter ID. Some types of ID that were omitted were questionable to say the least (why accept travel documents for the elderly but not the youth?)
I think the fear here is these voter ID laws were not made in good faith.
Edit: grammar
The very first time I saw real discrimination… at the time my girlfriend had a valid state ID and she was told she was too Black in the picture.
I get where you’re coming from it appears reasonable. But this is evidence that you should not require ID to vote, not that IDs are bad but that requiring ID to vote is bad.
