Voter ID in England led to racial and disability discrimination, report finds
Voter ID in England led to racial and disability discrimination, report finds
Exclusive: All-party report on rules governing 2023 local elections calls voter ID system a ‘poisoned cure’
Exactly as everybody warned.
65Also affected the poorest communities. The health, wealth and representation gaps grew even wider that day.
31Yeah that was the plan
29Works as intended then.
25Colour me shocked
10This is the best summary I could come up with:
Controversial rules governing voter identification led to racial and disability discrimination at this year’s local elections in England, according to a damning report co-written by one of the former ministers responsible for introducing them.
MPs and peers on the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and the constitution will publish a report on Monday saying that the rules caused more harm than they prevented when they came into force in May, and will call for changes, including the acceptance of a greater range of ID documents.
The report was co-authored by Sir Robert Buckland, who was justice minister in 2021 when the bill to introduce the rules was first launched in parliament, and who subsequently helped vote them through.
The report says: “Their decision in that instance was … clearly discriminatory (and potentially unlawful) because they denied Andrea Barratt the right to cast a ballot purely on the basis of circumstances which arose as a direct result of a disability.”
An interim study published by the Electoral Commission earlier this year found at least 14,000 people had been denied a vote because they lacked the correct form of ID.
The report’s authors call for ministers to broaden the types of documents that can be accepted as identification, and to allow those who fail ID checks to sign a legally binding declaration instead confirming their identity.
The original article contains 660 words, the summary contains 224 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
5The authors found that “polling clerks are more likely to fail to compare a photo ID to the person presenting that document if the person is of a different ethnicity”.
They also highlighted the case of Andrea Barratt, who is immunocompromised and was blocked from entering a polling booth after refusing to remove her mask for an identification check.
WTF am I even reading? The problem is that some clerks are too stupid to identify non-white persons? And that someone else refused to take off the mask for 2 seconds to show her face!!?
At least it's not the usual racist bullshit from the US where non-white people are allegedly too stupid and/or poor to get an ID...
5Immunocomprimised may potentially be a big risk landing someone in hospital if they inhaled something from the atmosphere that a weakened Immune system could handle
Sometimes that risk could end up being fatal
Fyi not a doctor but most people excluding anti-vaxers know how immune systems work
10more likely to fail to compare a photo ID to the person presenting that document if the person is of a different ethnicity
Wait, are they saying if someone is a different ethnicity they are more likely to not check if the ID matches?
That's how it reads to me but I don't think it's the intention?
3It's kinda funny how this is the opposite problem of the usual "they all look the same!"
I would probably unable to vote in the UK, given that I am not white and have IDs with various stages of hairlength and glasses. I look quite different in every photo.
Btw. this doesn't seem to be much of an issue in Germany, so this looks more like growing pains with people who are not used to IDs.
1
And less votes for their guy, which is the actual problem. Saying minorities can't get an ID is pure racism. But it's fine when they do it.
-1But surely you can't just let people vote without identifying them?
-11I mean, for a start it's a solution without a problem. We don't really have an issue with voter fraud in the UK. All this has done is disenfranchise people who could previously vote without needing an often costly ID.
33You give your name & address at your local polling place, and it is checked off by a polling officer against the Electoral Roll. So yes, you could pretend to be someone else, but they would need to have not already voted. And you could only do it once per polling station, because you'll be recognised by the polling officers. And for what?
13Name + DOB + address
All you need them to give you for verification.
7I can only speak for the US, and even then, only for my state of Illinois, but I had to provide my ID and proof of residency when I registered to vote. After that just my name, address, and signature were needed during the actual election.
4In Kansas and it was like that when I started voting, then they introduced the ID requirement at some later point. Voter fraud was never an issue, but it did penalize minorities just like gerrymandering so it did what it set out to do.
Republicans couldn't be happy with a majority, they want absolute control.
1
I don't understand what the problem is. A lot of countries require an ID to vote, that's normal practice. Why is British public such snowflakes about it?
-22I don’t understand what the problem is.
The fact that "Voter ID in England led to racial and disability discrimination".
Maybe read the article?
35It's unnecessary
Name + DOB + address
8I've had voter ID for as long as I know, and I've been with my parents to vote very often (good educating on their part).
It's never been an issue, you bring your ID, your voter ticket (which gets sent to you by the govt) and cast a vote. No racism issues there.
It seems the UK has somehow fucked it up.
-3
I think the biggest issue is simply that there was no need to change the system if there was no problem to begin with. Any changes to the system would lead to some people losing their ability to vote for no good reason.
If they stick with the law for a few decades no one will care anymore because everyone is used to it. But this year 14,000 people lost the ability to vote and they prevented about 0.4 people from commiting voter fraud. That's not very proportional.
6It even exists in Northern Ireland and has never been an issue. You can get photographic ID here for free for voting (but is also usable for proof of age) so it's very useful
4Exactly! It's not a problem anywhere in the world but England!
-3