Thursday, July 30, 2020
Evidence-free government presses on with voter ID plans
It is a bit of a chore to struggle through all the double negatives in this Guardian article, but essentially the government have been accused of misleading MPs when they claimed there was evidence that mandatory voter IDs do not discriminate against any particular demographic group.
As Cat Smith, the shadow minister for voter engagement, says, the Windrush scandal had shown how some communities have faced severe consequences when they had no official documentation:
“The government continue to plough on with voter ID plans, turning a blind eye how this could disenfranchise ethnic minorities,” she said. “The government have stated repeatedly on record that evidence concludes voter ID has no impact on any particular demographic group. This is simply not true, the evidence does not exist."
There is in fact, a disconnect between the Cabinet Office’s statement and the Electoral Commission’s evidence on this matter, which raises questions over whether the government has even considered the impact on ethnic minority voters of requiring people to bring ID in order to vote:
Asked for the evidence in a written question last month, [Cabinet Minister, Chloe] Smith said: “Based on the independent Electoral Commission’s evaluations of the 2018 and 2019 voter ID pilots, there is no indication that any consistent demographic was adversely affected by the use of voter ID.”
However, in both of its most recent reports, the Electoral Commission said it had no way of measuring the effect of voter ID on minority ethnic communities’ votes.
“Polling station staff were not asked to collect demographic data about the people who did not come back, owing to the practical challenges involved in carrying out that data collection exercise,” the body’s 2019 report said.
“That means we have no direct evidence to tell us whether people from particular backgrounds were more likely than others to find it hard to show ID.”
The 2019 report found in Derby, one of the pilot areas, that there was a strong correlation between the proportion of each ward’s population from an Asian background and the number of people not issued with a ballot paper – similar to a 2018 finding in Watford.
However, the body cautioned against drawing any conclusions from that data and said there was not yet sufficient evidence in either direction.
Once again, we have a government proceeding with a proposal that will have an adverse impact on the rights of ethnic minorities without any rationale for it. Requiring identification at polling stations is a voter suppression measure designed to benefit the Tories by discouraging and disenfranchising groups most likely to vote against them from exercising their democratic rights.
Surely the least we can expect is that legislation that affects people's basic democratic rights should be based on evidence that it will do no-harm.
As Cat Smith, the shadow minister for voter engagement, says, the Windrush scandal had shown how some communities have faced severe consequences when they had no official documentation:
“The government continue to plough on with voter ID plans, turning a blind eye how this could disenfranchise ethnic minorities,” she said. “The government have stated repeatedly on record that evidence concludes voter ID has no impact on any particular demographic group. This is simply not true, the evidence does not exist."
There is in fact, a disconnect between the Cabinet Office’s statement and the Electoral Commission’s evidence on this matter, which raises questions over whether the government has even considered the impact on ethnic minority voters of requiring people to bring ID in order to vote:
Asked for the evidence in a written question last month, [Cabinet Minister, Chloe] Smith said: “Based on the independent Electoral Commission’s evaluations of the 2018 and 2019 voter ID pilots, there is no indication that any consistent demographic was adversely affected by the use of voter ID.”
However, in both of its most recent reports, the Electoral Commission said it had no way of measuring the effect of voter ID on minority ethnic communities’ votes.
“Polling station staff were not asked to collect demographic data about the people who did not come back, owing to the practical challenges involved in carrying out that data collection exercise,” the body’s 2019 report said.
“That means we have no direct evidence to tell us whether people from particular backgrounds were more likely than others to find it hard to show ID.”
The 2019 report found in Derby, one of the pilot areas, that there was a strong correlation between the proportion of each ward’s population from an Asian background and the number of people not issued with a ballot paper – similar to a 2018 finding in Watford.
However, the body cautioned against drawing any conclusions from that data and said there was not yet sufficient evidence in either direction.
Once again, we have a government proceeding with a proposal that will have an adverse impact on the rights of ethnic minorities without any rationale for it. Requiring identification at polling stations is a voter suppression measure designed to benefit the Tories by discouraging and disenfranchising groups most likely to vote against them from exercising their democratic rights.
Surely the least we can expect is that legislation that affects people's basic democratic rights should be based on evidence that it will do no-harm.
