Local elections 2023: David Davis calls for delay to new voter photo ID rules to prevent ‘hundreds of thousands’ being blocked from casting ballots

27 comments

  2. >David Davis urged the government to pause, or risk disenfranchising the poor and elderly.

    There we have it, even senior Tories admit the aim of the introduction of photo ID is to disenfrenchise sections of the electorate.

  4. If there’s enough issues with local elections, police being called as voters aren’t able to vote etc and arguments starting. Or other such issues, am I optimistic in thinking it will be withdrawn? Just cause of the potential backlash on the day.

  5. Not delay. SCRAP! They are wasting money on a problem we simply don’t have.

    And, I just don’t understand why Labour aren’t going hard on this as a waste of money.

  6. If you are not intelligent enough to sort it out then why should you vote? Most people have a driving license or passport and it is FREE to get a voter certificate.

    It’s not exactly hard. It really isn’t.

  7. This is definitely going to backfire, stubborn old people will be the ones showing up without ID whereas younger people will have theirs. Mark my words

  8. This is not a bad thing. It’s just a requirement. You have a passport or driving licence? Thank you very much, here’s your ballot paper.

    Do you not want the integrity of elections to be absolutely rock solid? Britain is the odd one out by not having voter ID. We’re the weird ones on the world stage.

  9. American here. This is why they introduce voter ID laws. one state passed voter ID laws then 2 days after it was signed in there was suddenly financial issues and they closed down 4 ID offices

  11. Man who enabled and voted for the Vote Leave government that pushed this though suddenly upset about it.

    One for LAMF.

  12. There have been a handful of cases of electoral fraud in the last decade

    If even a few thousand people are turned away, that will affect more votes in one day than the number of instances of electoral fraud that have happened in modern British history

  13. Christ David, don’t you read the memos. This isn’t an unexpected consequence, it’s the purpose

  14. Let’s hope the oldies don’t find out about it till after the next election, might actually not end up punching ourselves in the dick for another 5 years.

  15. Get ID, don’t become a victim of tory voter suppression. Unless of course you are a Tory voter, then ID is not required…

  16. I’m just imagining a lot of blind people trying desperately to get their voter ID stuff sorted out and not being able to get the photo because they never needed photos for anything before.

    Thats the bit thats irritating me and I have some sight.

  17. >Tories win last election due to FPTP and are happy

    >Tories manage to destroy their reputation faster than ever

    >Tories know they’ve fucked it and then conveniently say they’re introducing voter ID to prevent rampant voter fraud that suddenly exists now that they’re unpopular and ruling on borrowed time

    >All this will likely end up with another FPTP win due to massive amounts of voters being told to essentially go fuck themselves

    Q.E.D. Tories know they’ll lose if they let the next election follow the usual rules for voting and are desperately doing everything they can outside of asassinating their competition to stay on top. I will bet money that even if this fails and they lose the next elections they’ll pull a Trump and accuse Labour of meddling with the votes.

  20. I love the narrative being sold on Reddit about voter ID

    Last week it was the super evil voter suppression plan put together by super villains Tory

    Now the tories are all bumbling idiots that didn’t realise it’ll effect old idiots as equally as it’ll effect young idiots.

    (Hint, it’s neither)

    Even funnier is the comments supporting old tories forgetting their ID. Funny how it’s not voter suppression when you realise it might help your side

  21. Of all the senior Tories, Davis does seem the most likely to accidentally say something sensible from time to time.

  24. I’m genuinely confused about why they’re introducing this in the first place. In order to be issued with a polling card you need to be on the electoral register which is maintained by your local council already. All that should be necessary to prove your identity should be the polling card in your name you’ve been issued with, which is already cross checked at a polling station by the people operating it. I get that they’ve been pretty relaxed about it as long as you’re claiming a name already on their list, but it feels way more reasonable to use polling cards than photo ID.

    I also have no idea why there is reason to do more about this at all? My feeling is that this is based on an imported right wing talking point from the USA that voter ID is necessary to stop illegal migrants from voting, and assumedly voting Democrat. I don’t know about the rate of disputed or fraudulent ballots in UK elections offhand, but I’ve never known it to be a significant issue before, we don’t have much history of elections disputed or thrown into uncertainty by electoral fraud, and I don’t understand why this is needed now. I suspect the point is to disenfranchise people who aren’t willing to apply for identity documents as a way of stealth introducing mass identity cards/proofs for regular things.

  26. It just seems nuts *not* to have ID requirements for voting. Just, in principle.

    I know it’s a fashionable hate-the-tories thing to be against voter ID, but I just can’t see a problem with it in principle.

    I’m OK with the argument that voter fraud is not a massive issue anyway, it’s just, why not have ID?

    I can see short term problems with lower turnout the first time, but this will fix itself within one or two cycles. Next time, they’ll come in with ID. My understanding is that you can get a free one? (I may be wrong)

    I just don’t get the hatred. I get that lots of people hate Tories, but that doesn’t persuade me at all that we shouldn’t just have ID to vote.

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