Figures indicate that only 3 per cent of people without voter ID will have applied for the government’s new card in time for May’s local elections, and young people have been among the slowest to sign up.
The Tories rammed through new laws forcing voters to exhibit photo ID at polling stations nationwide for the first time, despite there being no proof of in-person voter deception in the United Kingdom, but about 2 million people are believed to lack acceptable ID.
And campaigners have accused the government of discriminating against young people by disallowing travel cards and student ID while allowing pensioners to use discount travel cards as identification.
The government estimates the cost of providing ID to people who don’t have any will cost the taxpayers up to £230 million a year, but only 20,000 people have so far signed up for a new government-issued card, at an average rate of just 608 per day, according to the government’s new online dashboard.
If they continue at the same rate, only 60,215 people will have applied for a card before the deadline of April 25, just 3 per cent of the total number without ID.
Willie Sullivan, Senior Director of Campaigns for the Electoral Reform Society, said that it was a fundamental right in this country that every eligible person should be able to cast their vote.
He said that it was so deeply concerning that so many people still lack the ID they will need to show for the first time to do so in the rapidly approaching local elections.
Election workers will be asked to keep tabs on how many people are turned away from polling stations in the local elections on May 4 for a report to be published later by the Electoral Commission, and it’s understood they will be allowed to use their discretion on whether to allow people to vote with expired forms of ID, but a newspaper outlet understands election officials have laboured to recruit staff to work in polling stations as regular volunteers don’t want the added burden.
Mr Sullivan added that the government has promised that its complimentary ID scheme would mean no one would be unable to cast their vote in May when its new ID rules come into force, but he added that if the low take-up of the scheme doesn’t drastically improve it risks seeing people turned away at polling stations, which could do serious harm to trust in democracy.
This is equivalent to voter suppression, and the Tories have shifted the goalposts yet again, and this ID scheme isn’t required, we’ve got enough ways to identify ourselves already.
Passports, driver’s licences, birth certificates, marriage licences, utility bills, bus passes and any form of picture ID can be traced back to the person voting, which means these ID cards are meaningless, and voter fraud is hardly likely because there’s never actually been any evidence that there’s been any.
There’s never been widespread voter fraud in the United Kingdom, this is just another Tory right-wing ploy to suppress opposition voters, and that’s lower than low, and it’s comparable to attempting to rig the elections, but it won’t save the Tories because they’re going down a spiralling slope.
There are loads of people that have no bank account, no cars, no driving licences, no access to the internet, living hand to mouth in deprivation. These are the people most likely to vote against the Tories, so that’s why they’re making it so difficult, and if no one can see that, they must have their heads in the sand.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 