By Andy Fenwick, Worcester South Labour Party
At a recent Worcester CLP meeting it was announced that voter registration was up on the previous year. This increase is in no small part due to university students deciding to register in larger numbers. This is a worry for the sitting Tory MP Robin Walker because if these additional young voters voted Labour then we would be one less Tory posh boy. So what is Boris Johnson’s plan to stop a Tory whitewash at the next election? Nothing less than voter suppression, a tool used by Republicans in the USA.
To convince the electorate in the UK that Voter ID is needed the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has published a paper titled “Protecting the integrity of our elections: Voter identification at polling stations and the new Voter Card”
The Tory smokescreen is to hide behind is a mythical level of personation, that is ‘to assume the identity of another person with intent to deceive’, used for the kind of voter fraud where an individual votes in an election, whilst pretending to be a different elector. Out of 45 million voters in the country only 366 cases of voter fraud was reported at the 2017 general election and of that only one case resulted in a prosecution. No data so far has been produced for the 2019 general election.
So where is the demand for this rule change when it is such a minuscule problem? When it is possible for Boris Johnson to repeatedly lie to the country, to fiddle the purchasing of PPE and breach Covid rules where the only recourse is for the PM to appoint his own civil servant to report on rule breaches and then ignore the findings. It is the first time that the criminal is allowed to be judge, jury and executioner.
Tory donors are a threat to democracy
So it is correct to say that democracy is under threat but not by identify theft but by the high level of influence that donors to the Conservatives have. They are able to buy peerages for £3million and a hearing for the corporate lobby that works against the interest of local communities. It is also the illegal VIP route to government contracts for PPE that has undermined democracy. You get a contract just because you are friends with Matt Hancock. That is the real threat – Russian oil billionaires donating millions to the Conservative Party.
The policy paper states “Leading international election observers, the Electoral Commission, and the author of the 2016 report on electoral fraud, Sir (now Lord) Eric Pickles, all agree that there are potential vulnerabilities in our current system.” But the paper fails to say that this group supports voter ID as the solution. “Showing photographic identification is a reasonable and proportionate way to confirm that someone is who they say they are when voting” Well it isn’t for a worker, say, who has a long commute to and from work and who may decide to vote on the way home. only to find that his ID is in his locker at work, shouldn’t have shown his mugshots to his mates!, can’t go back for it. Result? His vote is suppressed. The policy paper suggests that voter IDs will be available up to the day before an election but we all remember the chaos of young people trying to register to vote at the last general election.
Kemi Badenoch MP, Minister at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said, “These measures have been informed by comprehensive research and pilots” yet the policy paper makes no reference to research and or pilot studies to back up the need for voter ID. . A trial of the scheme in local elections last year saw 800 people reportedly turned away from polling stations due to the lack of photo ID. Darren Hughes, of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), said “these plans will leave tens of thousands of legitimate voters voiceless”.
18+ Oyster Card not acceptable as Voter ID
There is a confusing jumble of what would be acceptable and unacceptable for voter ID, for example, a valid passport but the photo has to be recognisable. The same applies to driving licences and elderly travel passes. The youth rail pass would be excluded as being insufficiently secure “the 18+ Oyster card does not have a suitably secure application process for it to be used as photographic identification at polling stations unlike the 60+ Oyster card.” So here is the real justification if you are old you will vote Tory if you are young don’t bother turning up at the polling station
This scheme has been drafted with one purpose, to disqualify millions of workers and their families from voting. “There’s evidence that strict voter ID rules in the USA disproportionately disadvantage already marginalised groups” (ERS). With no evidence of widespread fraud, the effects of this rule change would be catastrophic, most people vote either going to work or returning from work. It is a simple and quick task currently with no need to even show the polling card. However that simple democratic inconvenience will become burdensome job, no identity no vote, so back home and find that passport or driving licence. Forcing people to bring ID to exercise their right to vote will lead to inevitable mistakes, accidents and exclusions. Even a handful of people not voting because they left their ID at home would have a far bigger impact on election results than alleged fraud.
While ministers have promised a free identification card from local councils on request, this simply represents another barrier to voting that will put many off – with large variations likely in terms of how easy the cards are to acquire. Some forms of free ID were made available in trials but figures show that almost no one got one. That was unsurprising given that, in many cases, a would-be voter had to turn up at a council office between nine a.m and five p.m. from Monday to Friday, fill in forms and get someone of “high standing” in your area to sign it.
6% error in electoral register due to transient working class voters
This is not the only method that the Tories will use to rig the election. The Boundary Commission’s claim to be impartial in deciding on constituency sizes is false. The Boundary Commission uses electoral rolls to calculate an “even” distribution of voters but these records are inaccurate. The total number of UK Parliamentary electors decreased by 372,000 (0.8%) between December 2017 and December 2018, and yet the population is growing with more elderly living longer!
The problem with electoral rolls is the transient nature of many working class households, Time limited rental agreements and the temporary nature of employment means that up to 6% of the electoral roll is wrong. This is more prevalent in urban areas with higher levels of private rented accommodation. So the Boundary Commission is given carte blanch to decide the shape of the constituencies, turning what was a once marginal seat into a Tory certainty. They do this by adding rural areas with no connection to the urban constituency and even merging areas across local government boundaries. Instead of using the electoral rolls the Boundary Commission should use data from the census to get a fair distribution.
With all this vote rigging the Tories may think that any future election is in the bag, but this is a pipe dream. Labour has to take this threat to democracy and turn it on its head. Local Labour Parties should be out on the door campaigning for voter registration and recruiting new members. In this way it is possible for Labour to become a one million member party
