On International Women’s Day #IWD2018 and in the
year celebrating 100 years since 8.5 million (40%)
of women in the UK were first able to vote it seems pertinent to write about
the possible dis-enfranchisement of millions. Last month I wrote a short story
highlighting (I hope) the importance of votes for all and some detail of the
struggle for it. Here it is if you’d like to read it: https://www.abctales.com/story/gletherby/shoulder-shoulder
In the local elections, taking place in May of
this year, the Conservative Government are planning to run a voting ID pilot
which will take place in Bromley, Gosport, Swindon, Watford and Woking.
Separate trials about the security of postal voting will take place in
Peterborough, Tower Hamlets and Slough. All this despite the lack of a problem. For as Ellie Mae O'Hagan writes:
Data collection
by the Electoral Commission suggests there were 28 cases of voter fraud in
2017. Of course it’s hard to collect numbers of this issue, so let’s imagine
the true figure is actually double that. This would mean 0.0008% of the UK
electorate committed voter fraud.
A group of more than 40 charities, campaign groups (including Age UK,
the RNIB, the Salvation Army, the British Youth Council, Stonewall, Operation
Black Vote, Liberty, the National Union of Students and St Mungo’s) and academics
have written to the government to warn that plans to trial compulsory voter ID risk disenfranchising large numbers of vulnerable
people.The letter was organised by the Electoral Reform Society and includes:
Electoral Commission figures indicated that 3.5 million people in Britain - 7.5% of the electorate - do not have have access to any form of photo ID.
Warning that mandatory voter ID could:
…prevent a
significant barrier to democratic engagement and risk compromising a basic
human right for some of the most marginalised groups in society. (i.e. those least
likely to have photo ID)
Add to this the low levels of public awareness about the pilots and even
more people may be unable to vote on the day.
Given
that as Darren Hughes, chief
executive of the Electoral Reform Society, says, mandatory voter ID is ‘a
sledgehammer to crack a nut’ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/06/voter-id-trials-risk-disenfranchising-vulnerable-people it is, at least for
me, impossible to disagree with O’Hagan who argues ‘The only reason Tories want
photo ID at the booth is to manipulate the ballot’ for the majority of the
disenfranchised ‘are likely to be from disadvantaged and BAME backgrounds’ AND ‘It
can’t be mere coincidence that the very groups likely to be disenfranchised by
this move are also the same ones that tend to vote Labour.’
If you
agree with Hagan that:
If the
Conservative party can't win power through legitimate democratic means, then
perhaps it doesn’t deserve power at all.
Why not
sign the Labour Party’s petition HERE - https://action.labour.org.uk/page/s/democracy
No comments:
Post a Comment