Friday, April 24, 2020
Voter ID disenfranchises the poor
In a sure sign that life is going on despite COVID-19, the Court of Appeal has been meeting remotely to hear evidence from those challenging government plans to make us take ID to the polling booth.
The Guardian reports that Neil Coughlan, a community activist from Braintree in Essex, argued to Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Mccombe and Lord Justice Green that voter fraud is extremely rare and the electoral trials are unlawful.
He argued, quite reasonably, that pilot schemes requiring voters to produce photo ID at polling stations disenfranchised those who do not have or cannot find their documents and alienate people from the democratic process and that many people did not have the type of photo ID required at a few polling stations in last May’s local elections:
Anthony Peto QC, appearing for Coughlan, said the scheme was “a major constitutional change in the exercise of a fundamental democratic right”.
He said Coughlan lives in a part of Essex that “he describes as run-down and neglected”. Peto added: “He feels that this [scheme] will serve to disenfranchise the poor who already feel [ignored] and where many people do not have photo IDs.”
There was little evidence of voter fraud and personation taking place in the UK outside of Northern Ireland, the court was told. A survey last year found that more than 99% of polling station officials said they had no suspicions of anyone impersonating someone else in order to steal their vote.
Peto said ministerial orders under which the pilot schemes were given the go-ahead were not made legitimately under the Representation of the People Act 2000.
Section 10 of the act gives a minister power to introduce pilots “as regards when, where and how voting at elections is to take place”, the court was told.
“By empowering the minister to make changes ‘as regards how voting is to take place’,” the court was told, “parliament cannot have intended to empower ministers effectively to disenfranchise a section of legitimate voters who would be unable to find and produce specified documents or who would be unable to satisfy local officials on the spot as to their entitlement to vote”.
Coughlan is appealing against the high court’s rejection of his claim. Lawyers for the Cabinet Office told the appeal court judges that the purpose of the electoral trials was to discover what problems might arise and that they were lawful.
This court case will be worth following.
The Guardian reports that Neil Coughlan, a community activist from Braintree in Essex, argued to Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Mccombe and Lord Justice Green that voter fraud is extremely rare and the electoral trials are unlawful.
He argued, quite reasonably, that pilot schemes requiring voters to produce photo ID at polling stations disenfranchised those who do not have or cannot find their documents and alienate people from the democratic process and that many people did not have the type of photo ID required at a few polling stations in last May’s local elections:
Anthony Peto QC, appearing for Coughlan, said the scheme was “a major constitutional change in the exercise of a fundamental democratic right”.
He said Coughlan lives in a part of Essex that “he describes as run-down and neglected”. Peto added: “He feels that this [scheme] will serve to disenfranchise the poor who already feel [ignored] and where many people do not have photo IDs.”
There was little evidence of voter fraud and personation taking place in the UK outside of Northern Ireland, the court was told. A survey last year found that more than 99% of polling station officials said they had no suspicions of anyone impersonating someone else in order to steal their vote.
Peto said ministerial orders under which the pilot schemes were given the go-ahead were not made legitimately under the Representation of the People Act 2000.
Section 10 of the act gives a minister power to introduce pilots “as regards when, where and how voting at elections is to take place”, the court was told.
“By empowering the minister to make changes ‘as regards how voting is to take place’,” the court was told, “parliament cannot have intended to empower ministers effectively to disenfranchise a section of legitimate voters who would be unable to find and produce specified documents or who would be unable to satisfy local officials on the spot as to their entitlement to vote”.
Coughlan is appealing against the high court’s rejection of his claim. Lawyers for the Cabinet Office told the appeal court judges that the purpose of the electoral trials was to discover what problems might arise and that they were lawful.
This court case will be worth following.
