"It's about fraud", they cry!! Yet it turns out there isn't any fraud - or at least not the sort of fraud that gets sorted by demanding little old ladies in rural Wiltshire provide ID in order to vote:
Figures from the Electoral Commission show personation fraud at the polling station accounted for eight out of the 266 allegations made last year. No further action was taken for seven of these, and one allegation was resolved locally.So last year there were precisely zero actual cases of personation fraud - the only sort of fraud that demanding ID solves. If you want to get serious about abuse of elections then you ned to look at:
1. Voter intimidation especially intimidation of women
2. Postal vote farming made possible by automatic rights to a PV
3. Abuse of political selection processes (in all the main parties)
4. Treating and, let's call it, "extreme creativity" around election expenses
One previously huge abuse - false registration - has largely been dealt with through individual registration rules.
None of this is to say that personation doesn't take place (people with experience of campaigning in places like Bradford or Tower Hamlets will tell you it is commonplace - albeit that the evidence for this is more limited). It remains the case that intimidation, treating and postal vote abuse are far more of a problem. The last is easy to deal with - we just return to a system similar to Blair's reforms - but the wide problem of how people campaign is much more difficult to respond to, which is probably why the simple "show ID" proposal - 'look we're doing something' - was taken.
....
3 comments:
Perhaps Parliament has found the ultimate method of solving the problem of voter fraud. As we have all learnt that MPs ignore what you vote for, there is no longer any point to voting.
How do we know that it is really you writing this?
No amount of ID or even biometric systems will address the level of Postal and Proxy fraud in a place like Keighley, it's vote-harvesting on an industrial scale but no-one has the balls to tackle it for fear of accusation of discrimination or risk of upsetting their pals.
The data is out there for all to see, but those who should be seeing it decide that convenient 'see no evil' blindness is preferable and that's why it will continue to be a problem until someone lifts the veil. All councillors in Bradford MDC are guilty as charged.
Post a Comment