Thursday, September 02, 2021
Ministers’ plans for voter ID risk breaching human rights law
The Independent has more on government plans to insist on voters producing IDs at polling stations.
They say that a report, published by parliament’s cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights, has warned that the demand to show photo ID at the polling station could deny the right to vote to large numbers of people and create barriers to minority groups participating in elections. They estimate that the plan could discriminate against as many as 2 million elderly, disabled and ethnic minority people.
And the report found that the problem which the measure is supposed to solve, of people fraudulently passing themselves off as someone else to vote, was “rare”, with just 171 allegations since 2014, leading to nine cautions and three convictions:
Instead, the committee said, the government could massively increase involvement in democracy by introducing automatic voter registration, following Electoral Commission research that up to 9.4m people eligible to vote are not on the electoral roll or are registered at the wrong address. This included around 25 per cent of black and Asian voters and 45 per cent of 18-24 year-olds, compared to an average of 17 per cent overall and 10 per cent of over-70s.
Ministers can expect stiff opposition to the Elections Bill when it comes back to the House of Commons for its second reading on Tuesday next week, with many MPs concerned that it will exclude marginalised groups from voting.
A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire Today’s report warned that the government must do more to demonstrate the need to voter ID and mitigate the potential barriers to voting it will create, in order to avoid breaches of the Human Rights Convention duties to hold free and fair elections.
The committee heard evidence that many of the 2.1m people who do not currently have photo ID in the form or passports, driving licences and other official documentation would be reluctant to sign up for the Voter Card proposed by the government as an alternative way of proving their identity at the polling station.
Cabinet Office research found that 42 per cent of those with no photo ID said they were unlikely to apply.
And Operation Black Vote director Simon Woolley told the committee that introducing a requirement for voter ID would fuel distrust among ethnic minority communities and could have “a monstrous negative effect, which some have characterised as voter suppression”.
Lord Woolley said he feared that the Voter Card would act as “another impediment for a group that is already hesitant about fully engaging in the democratic process”, warning: “Quite a few people in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities feel that a Government who do not have their best interests at heart may want to find a route for these ID cards as Big Brother to watch over them.”
The committee said that the government’s aim to improve the integrity of elections was “clearly legitimate”, but warned: “Any measures must be proportionate to the scale of the problem and not interfere with the right to vote so as to render the right to vote ineffective.”
Voter ID was being proposed at a time when public confidence in elections is at an “all-time high”, with Electoral Commission research finding that 87 per cent believe voting is safe from fraud and abuse - up from 80 per cent in 2020.
This bill is looking more and more like American-style voter suppression.
They say that a report, published by parliament’s cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights, has warned that the demand to show photo ID at the polling station could deny the right to vote to large numbers of people and create barriers to minority groups participating in elections. They estimate that the plan could discriminate against as many as 2 million elderly, disabled and ethnic minority people.
And the report found that the problem which the measure is supposed to solve, of people fraudulently passing themselves off as someone else to vote, was “rare”, with just 171 allegations since 2014, leading to nine cautions and three convictions:
Instead, the committee said, the government could massively increase involvement in democracy by introducing automatic voter registration, following Electoral Commission research that up to 9.4m people eligible to vote are not on the electoral roll or are registered at the wrong address. This included around 25 per cent of black and Asian voters and 45 per cent of 18-24 year-olds, compared to an average of 17 per cent overall and 10 per cent of over-70s.
Ministers can expect stiff opposition to the Elections Bill when it comes back to the House of Commons for its second reading on Tuesday next week, with many MPs concerned that it will exclude marginalised groups from voting.
A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire Today’s report warned that the government must do more to demonstrate the need to voter ID and mitigate the potential barriers to voting it will create, in order to avoid breaches of the Human Rights Convention duties to hold free and fair elections.
The committee heard evidence that many of the 2.1m people who do not currently have photo ID in the form or passports, driving licences and other official documentation would be reluctant to sign up for the Voter Card proposed by the government as an alternative way of proving their identity at the polling station.
Cabinet Office research found that 42 per cent of those with no photo ID said they were unlikely to apply.
And Operation Black Vote director Simon Woolley told the committee that introducing a requirement for voter ID would fuel distrust among ethnic minority communities and could have “a monstrous negative effect, which some have characterised as voter suppression”.
Lord Woolley said he feared that the Voter Card would act as “another impediment for a group that is already hesitant about fully engaging in the democratic process”, warning: “Quite a few people in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities feel that a Government who do not have their best interests at heart may want to find a route for these ID cards as Big Brother to watch over them.”
The committee said that the government’s aim to improve the integrity of elections was “clearly legitimate”, but warned: “Any measures must be proportionate to the scale of the problem and not interfere with the right to vote so as to render the right to vote ineffective.”
Voter ID was being proposed at a time when public confidence in elections is at an “all-time high”, with Electoral Commission research finding that 87 per cent believe voting is safe from fraud and abuse - up from 80 per cent in 2020.
This bill is looking more and more like American-style voter suppression.
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Personation is difficult to prove. It is a lot more common than some say and I am sad that our party is allowing this fraud to continue.
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