If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
I did actually.
The Scottish experience persuaded me that 16 and 17 year olds should have the vote, but for EU citizens a vote in general elections is off, if they want the vote they can apply for citizenship.
So you do see how vast the implications of their plans were. If Labour had won the election, they would have immediately enfranchised every person over the age of 16 in this country, thus shifting the balance of power well to the left of what either of us would like to see for the foreseeable future. This got almost no news coverage during the election, despite the fact that it approached Brexit itself in its potential consequences.
So Labour trying to game the system (taking your point at face value for purposes of debate) justifies Conservatives in actually gaming the system? And disenfranchising perfectly qualified adults 18 plus in the process?
I see it's trains and speculation about nuclear strikes. Or Tuesday on PB.
Some of us are trying to chat about wine and related stratigraphy!
Has anyone watched "The Wine Show"?
I'm not sure what channel it was on originally, but I've watched it on Amazon. I've found it a really fun and interesting introduction to loads of wines I knew nothing about.
I think the presenters are excellent; Matthew Goode, James Puefoy, Joe Fattorini and Matthew Rhys all impressed me.
And has anyone else seen Matthew Rhys in The Americans?
Might be my favourite TV show ever..
Timed this one really badly at the end of the last thread and would love to know if anyone else enjoyed The Wine Show or The Americans?
I don't know either well (I lost track of the Americans after season 1 and never seen the other), HOWEVER welcome to PB!
I was hooked on the The Americans from the first episode- genuinely a landmark series.
The thing I might have enjoyed even more than the Brit and American performaces in this show is the Russian actors. Costa Ronin (Burov), Annet Mahendru (Nina) and Lev Gorn (Arkady) were exceptional.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
Scotland waves hullo. 20K+ refugees are given the vote for the first time in a country they may not even have a right to reside in. Sturgeon wins by just over 13K votes. Hmmm.....
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
The Caledonian Sleeper is insanely expensive compared to other routes (airlines, normal trains)
Yet it is consistently sold out, even in First Class - and they have pretty crap trains, still, despite some updating
The new thing in travel is Experience, not just arriving somewhere on a normal boring plane to sit on a beach. Going by sleeper - especially on a brilliant route like Euston-Fort William - is an amazing experience IN ITSELF.
Other famous sleeper trains around the world - the Ghan for sure, maybe the Trans Siberian? - are also commercially successful. People want to have the experience
Why do you want to SLEEP during a train journey? I'd rather do the journey in stages during the daytime so I can take in the scenery and sights.
I normally refer to such services as 'overnights' rather than 'sleepers'. Last time I did one, I got no sleep.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
Scotland waves hullo. 20K+ refugees are given the vote for the first time in a country they may not even have a right to reside in. Sturgeon wins by just over 13K votes. Hmmm.....
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Er... does 'the left' = @TSE these days? My how the world changes.
Yes.
If this is about Republicans why have the Electoral Commission been in favour of this since 2014? I've not seen a good answer for that instead it's copying American debates primarily.
Because the original electoral commission plans had a variety of permissible ID, the new plans want exclusively photo ID or a approval from the local council beforehand.
Good answer.
So pushing for an amendment for more forms of ID seems like a good thing to do then?
I'd go for the parcel example the government cites.
Here's the list of permissible ID that you need to pick up a parcel at your local post office.
We’ll accept any of these: • Birth certificate • Building society book • Cheque book • Cheque guarantee card • Council tax payment book • Credit card • Credit card statement (no older than 6 months) • Debit card • Full driving licence • Marriage certificate • Military photo ID • Police Warrant Card • Foreign national identity card • National Savings bank book • Valid passport • Paid utilities bill (no older than 6 months) • Standard acknowledgement letter (SAL) issued by the Home Office for asylum seekers • Trade union card
Most bank and credit cards dont even have your full name (not sure why?). Id guess most utility bills are paid online, typically by direct debit, so no way of knowing if it has been paid or not.
My major issue with debit cards at the moment is the brilliant idea of putting your full sort code and account number on the front of your card*.
That won't help fraudsters/thieves if you misplace your card.
*My new TSB card has nothing on the front and everything listed on the back, including the account number and sort code.
The other problem with cards is they're obsolete.
I've stopped carrying a wallet quite frequently. I pay with my phone or my watch.
Suppose you lose or forget your phone?
Then I'm in the same position as if I lose or forget my wallet.
But I only need to replace my phone, not everything in my wallet.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
I did actually.
The Scottish experience persuaded me that 16 and 17 year olds should have the vote, but for EU citizens a vote in general elections is off, if they want the vote they can apply for citizenship.
So you do see how vast the implications of their plans were. If Labour had won the election, they would have immediately enfranchised every person over the age of 16 in this country, thus shifting the balance of power well to the left of what either of us would like to see for the foreseeable future. This got almost no news coverage during the election, despite the fact that it approached Brexit itself in its potential consequences.
So Labour trying to game the system (taking your point at face value for purposes of debate) justifies Conservatives in actually gaming the system? And disenfranchising perfectly qualified adults 18 plus in the process?
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
I did actually.
The Scottish experience persuaded me that 16 and 17 year olds should have the vote, but for EU citizens a vote in general elections is off, if they want the vote they can apply for citizenship.
So you do see how vast the implications of their plans were. If Labour had won the election, they would have immediately enfranchised every person over the age of 16 in this country, thus shifting the balance of power well to the left of what either of us would like to see for the foreseeable future. This got almost no news coverage during the election, despite the fact that it approached Brexit itself in its potential consequences.
I must admit that I think all these decisions should be taken out of the hands of political parties and given to a completely independent body.
Political parties always seek partisan advantage. Labour are just as bad as the Tories (just look at the devolved Parliaments, albeit in Scotland it has backfired on them).
On enfranchising 16 year olds, I note that this is what Drakeford did for the most recent Senedd elections. Probably a contributory part of his success.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Er... does 'the left' = @TSE these days? My how the world changes.
Yes.
If this is about Republicans why have the Electoral Commission been in favour of this since 2014? I've not seen a good answer for that instead it's copying American debates primarily.
Because the original electoral commission plans had a variety of permissible ID, the new plans want exclusively photo ID or a approval from the local council beforehand.
Good answer.
So pushing for an amendment for more forms of ID seems like a good thing to do then?
I'd go for the parcel example the government cites.
Here's the list of permissible ID that you need to pick up a parcel at your local post office.
We’ll accept any of these: • Birth certificate • Building society book • Cheque book • Cheque guarantee card • Council tax payment book • Credit card • Credit card statement (no older than 6 months) • Debit card • Full driving licence • Marriage certificate • Military photo ID • Police Warrant Card • Foreign national identity card • National Savings bank book • Valid passport • Paid utilities bill (no older than 6 months) • Standard acknowledgement letter (SAL) issued by the Home Office for asylum seekers • Trade union card
Most bank and credit cards dont even have your full name (not sure why?). Id guess most utility bills are paid online, typically by direct debit, so no way of knowing if it has been paid or not.
My major issue with debit cards at the moment is the brilliant idea of putting your full sort code and account number on the front of your card*.
That won't help fraudsters/thieves if you misplace your card.
*My new TSB card has nothing on the front and everything listed on the back, including the account number and sort code.
The other problem with cards is they're obsolete.
I've stopped carrying a wallet quite frequently. I pay with my phone or my watch.
I virtually never pay by cheque. Online yes since tge ability to conform.tge payee...but never by phone and I don't have watch technology. I don't trust either.
I trust phone technology much more than I trust cards, and it's more convenient by far. Use my fingerprint to unlock the phone, choose which card I'm using, tap the contactless, done.
@Pagan2 will be along in a minute to explain that we're all mad and should only ever trust specie coin. Everything else can be used by 'them' to track you.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
Here in WA State the voter signature on EVERY returned election ballot is checked against signature on file. Voters who forget to sign their return ballot envelopes OR whose sigs don't match their file sig are notified and given opportunity to correct the problem via the mail.
Meaning that a properly-conducted postal vote can be LESS susceptible to fraud & abuse than in-person voting.
Also note that every active registered voter in WA is automatically mailed a ballot for all elections in their jurisdiction. So NONE are turned away BEFORE they have a chance to submit their ballot and vote. Any challenge, and ultimate rejection takes place AFTER the person has voted.
Incidentally, the greatest source of mismatching signatures is NOT Tammany Hall type fraud, which is as rare as hens teeth in WA State.
Instead, it's wives signing for their husband's ballots or visa versa. Or parents doing same for the kids who are away at school. These get caught and are NOT counted. But not what you'd call criminal behavior, just human nature.
Isn’t postal voting precisely what Republicans call criminal behaviour these days ?
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
No thanks. A low tech ID card like Switzerland is fine. One that tracks your movements is a nightmare.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
I want the UK to remain an ID card free zone.
Tbh you'll be lucky if the UK remains a zone at all.
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
You turn up without photo ID? No problem. The returning office takes a photo of you, and you sign the back of it.
Later we can check off to see if anyone voted who's dead, or if a second person turns up. You could even do a spot check to see how many (if any) of the people who voted without ID were doing it fraudulently.
Dead simple. Doesn't suppress the vote. Costs practically nothing. Isn't ID cards by the back door.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
“ Political obsessives are the material of opinion polls, but not the fabric of the nation. It could be that in showing off about doing their homework, giving the "clever" answer rather than what they actually intend to do, they are making the polls less accurate.
How can pollsters improve their results? One possibility could be to ask each respondent how politically engaged they are, how often they watch QT, Newsnight, News at Ten etc and weight their responses accordingly, skewed heavily towards the politically disinterested. Maybe they should exclude the politically engaged from political opinion polls altogether.”
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
I want the UK to remain an ID card free zone.
So do I. But collectively we have voted for a nationalist authoritarian party who are in favour of them. If we are going to do it, we may as well do it right.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
Here in WA State the voter signature on EVERY returned election ballot is checked against signature on file. Voters who forget to sign their return ballot envelopes OR whose sigs don't match their file sig are notified and given opportunity to correct the problem via the mail.
Meaning that a properly-conducted postal vote can be LESS susceptible to fraud & abuse than in-person voting.
Also note that every active registered voter in WA is automatically mailed a ballot for all elections in their jurisdiction. So NONE are turned away BEFORE they have a chance to submit their ballot and vote. Any challenge, and ultimate rejection takes place AFTER the person has voted.
Incidentally, the greatest source of mismatching signatures is NOT Tammany Hall type fraud, which is as rare as hens teeth in WA State.
Instead, it's wives signing for their husband's ballots or visa versa. Or parents doing same for the kids who are away at school. These get caught and are NOT counted. But not what you'd call criminal behavior, just human nature.
Isn’t postal voting precisely what Republicans call criminal behaviour these days ?
NOT if it's Republicans who are doing it!
Interesting to note that in WA State it was Republican counties who led the way on all vote-by-mail elections. GOP was AOK with it where they were dominate, such as most of eastern Washington.
But NOT in King County and other counties that leaned Democratic. Gee, wonder why?
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
I did actually.
The Scottish experience persuaded me that 16 and 17 year olds should have the vote, but for EU citizens a vote in general elections is off, if they want the vote they can apply for citizenship.
So you do see how vast the implications of their plans were. If Labour had won the election, they would have immediately enfranchised every person over the age of 16 in this country, thus shifting the balance of power well to the left of what either of us would like to see for the foreseeable future. This got almost no news coverage during the election, despite the fact that it approached Brexit itself in its potential consequences.
I must admit that I think all these decisions should be taken out of the hands of political parties and given to a completely independent body.
Political parties always seek partisan advantage. Labour are just as bad as the Tories (just look at the devolved Parliaments, albeit in Scotland it has backfired on them).
On enfranchising 16 year olds, I note that this is what Drakeford did for the most recent Senedd elections. Probably a contributory part of his success.
Are there any stats on how those 16 to 18 voted? Green and Nationalist be my guess.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
It would be funny if there was more voter fraud after voter ID was brought in.
There's so little of it just now that some statistical blip somehow seems possible.
There will inevitably be "more" fraud after any introduction of anti-fraud measures. It just brings the existing fraud into the open. It's like moving from a zero regulation system to one with some or good regulations. The fraud happened before and after, all that changes is the detection rate.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Er... does 'the left' = @TSE these days? My how the world changes.
Yes.
If this is about Republicans why have the Electoral Commission been in favour of this since 2014? I've not seen a good answer for that instead it's copying American debates primarily.
The Electoral Commission seems to have been more concerned with the prevention of possible future personation than with any evidence it was widespread. From their 2014 report (my emphasis):-
Requiring voters to show identification in polling stations Polling station voting in Great Britain remains vulnerable to personation fraud because there are currently few checks available to prevent someone claiming to be an elector and voting in their name. This part of the system could become more vulnerable to fraud as other processes (including electoral registration and postal or proxy voting) become more secure. We have therefore concluded that there should be a requirement for electors across Great Britain to present an acceptable form of identification prior to voting at the polling station. https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/Electoral-fraud-review-final-report.pdf
Indeed. So they have concluded that there should be a requirement for electors across Great Britain to present an acceptable form of identification prior to voting at the polling station.
Yes but it does not seem to have been based on any substantive evidence, just a fear that if known forms of electoral fraud around postal and proxy voting were made more difficult, then would-be fraudsters might in future move to personation. That is what the quoted paragraph says: This part of the system could become more vulnerable to fraud as other processes (including electoral registration and postal or proxy voting) become more secure.
So far, it has not. Of course, evidence is not in from last week's elections across Britain, so watch this space.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
So you broke the French record re: Dreyfus? J'accuse!
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
Yes, that's interesting. I don't think one can quite conclude "it therefore doesn't make any difference", because highly engaged voters can be opinion leaders, directly by influencing others over time or indirectly by acting as canaries in the coal mine (if stories like that persist they will percolate down to the moderately interested etc.).
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Fewer than 600 cases nationally in 2019? That hardly sounds like a problem that needs new legislation to me.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
One of my earliest smart arsery’s was having to write about what I watched on telly the previous night when I was in the first year juniors. I wrote about an IRA member called Gerard Tuet (I think, not so smart now). My teacher corrected it to ‘Gerald’ and I had to pull her up... she admitted she as wrong, how things change!
It also used to amaze me that they used to think it made a difference that someone else dubbed Gerry Adam’s words! Maybe it did, but I couldn’t have it
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
I want the UK to remain an ID card free zone.
So do I. But collectively we have voted for a nationalist authoritarian party who are in favour of them. If we are going to do it, we may as well do it right.
That's not doing it right, that's doing it authoritarian. That facilitates a Chinese style social credit system. Utterly horrific.
Doing it quick, cheap and dirty in the finest British tradition, so it doesn't integrate with other systems, is the best safeguard of all.
It would be funny if there was more voter fraud after voter ID was brought in.
There's so little of it just now that some statistical blip somehow seems possible.
There will inevitably be "more" fraud after any introduction of anti-fraud measures. It just brings the existing fraud into the open. It's like moving from a zero regulation system to one with some or good regulations. The fraud happened before and after, all that changes is the detection rate.
NOT the experience in WA State re: vote by mail. Which (as I mentioned upthred) includes checking ALL returned ballot signatures against sigs on file.
The change from system of unchecked in-person voting to verified vote by mail did NOT reveal the kind of "inevitable" increase in fraud detection you posit.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Fewer than 600 cases nationally in 2019? That hardly sounds like a problem that needs new legislation to me.
As far as I can ascertain from what evidence there is, the Indian variant isn’t resistant to the vaccine. So might be worth going with Andy Burnham’s plan and vaccinating everyone quick sharp in Greater Manchester and East Lancs. We could do that in a fortnight.
As far as I can ascertain from what evidence there is, the Indian variant isn’t resistant to the vaccine. So might be worth going with Andy Burnham’s plan and vaccinating everyone quick sharp in Greater Manchester and East Lancs. We could do that in a fortnight.
In fact vastly less than a fortnight, as most adults there have already been vaccinated! Duh. Probably 3-4 days. Do it.
Most bank and credit cards dont even have your full name (not sure why?). Id guess most utility bills are paid online, typically by direct debit, so no way of knowing if it has been paid or not.
Yes, that's starting to be a nuisance - more than once I've had to ask for a print copy of a utility bill because someone required it.
Here's a question - do people routinely carry their driving licence with them? Mine lives in a cupboard.
Not since lockdown - just another item to sanitise!
Why, where did you put it?
In my travelcard wallet thingy, with my debit card. Now when I go shopping just carry my card loose in my coat pocket.
Keep my licence at home. Along with my library card, zoo membership, and other eclectic stuff.
But when you used your debit card why did you need to sanitise your driving licence?
I've started using my phone for all payments (contactless, no with no limit) but I still carry my wallet with various cards including my driving licence and my disabled person's rail card (that nobody ever asks me for!)
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
650 it says in header, less than one per constituency?
As far as I can ascertain from what evidence there is, the Indian variant isn’t resistant to the vaccine. So might be worth going with Andy Burnham’s plan and vaccinating everyone quick sharp in Greater Manchester and East Lancs. We could do that in a fortnight.
Nah, just continue with the current rollout. We're going to be doing millions of first doses per week soon and the last 14-15m people will be done by the end of June and both doses done by the end of July. We just stay the course, don't overcomplicate anything.
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
Yes, that's interesting. I don't think one can quite conclude "it therefore doesn't make any difference", because highly engaged voters can be opinion leaders, directly by influencing others over time or indirectly by acting as canaries in the coal mine (if stories like that persist they will percolate down to the moderately interested etc.).
They started doing it in 2015. @viewcode told me after I had written that blog that they were doing so. If I had known I might well have backed Labour to do well in 2017, as YouGov were picking up their surge way before others
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Convictions for personation can be counted on the fingers of one hand after a nasty accident.
Here are the data for 2019, the year of three big sets of elections:
It would be funny if there was more voter fraud after voter ID was brought in.
There's so little of it just now that some statistical blip somehow seems possible.
There will inevitably be "more" fraud after any introduction of anti-fraud measures. It just brings the existing fraud into the open. It's like moving from a zero regulation system to one with some or good regulations. The fraud happened before and after, all that changes is the detection rate.
That sounds like when people celebrate low crime figures, but also celebrate them when they rise on the basis it means they are recording more accurately. So really there's no way to not celebrate.
And what if there are more, but barely any more, would the cost of the new system have been worth it?
Reminds me of discussions about how Mayor Daley "stole" the 1960 presidential election for Richard Nixon, by allegedly swinging the vote his way in Cook County.
It was downstate (Republican) versus Cook County (Democratic). and the bosses, holding back totals from key precincts, were playing out their concealed cards as in a giant game of blackjack. There was nothing anyone could do in Hyannisport except hope that Boss Daley of Chicago could do it for them. Daley was a master at this kind of election-night blackjack game. So were the men I was with in the back room—all of them tense until the A.P. ticker chattered and reported something like this: "With all downstate precincts now reported in, and only Cook County precincts unreported, Richard Nixon has surged into the lead by 3,000 votes." I was dismayed, for if Nixon had really carried Illinois, the game was all but over. And at this point I was jabbed from dismay by the outburst of jubilation from young Dick Donahue, who yelped, "He's got them! Daley made them go first. He's still holding back ... watch him play his hand now."
I was baffled, they were elated. But they knew the counting game better than I, and as if in response to Donahue's yelp, the ticker, having stuttered along for several minutes with other results, announced: "With the last precincts of Cook County now in, Senator Kennedy has won a lead of 8,000 votes to carry Illinois's 27 electoral votes." Kennedy, I learned afterward, had been assured of the result several hours before. Later that evening, Kennedy told Benjamin Bradlee of an early call from Daley, when all seemed in doubt. "With a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends," Daley had assured Kennedy before the A.P. had pushed out the count, "you're going to carry Illinois."
> particular since there was a documented history of vote rigging by the Republicans in downstate Illinois, not everywhere certainly, but hardly rare right up through the mid-60s.
In 1982, Illinois was the setting for "a hotly contested" gubernatorial race between Democratic Senator Adlai Stevenson III, son of former governor and presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson II, and Republican James Thompson... Stevenson claimed there was evidence of voter fraud in areas of the state outside of Chicago. Although those claims "did not pan out," it was clear that "the prospect of a close [judicial] look at the conduct of voting in Chicago did not please many of Chicago's Democratic kingpins, already under pressure because of the federal [criminal] investigation of charges of vote fraud in the [1982] election.…"
In its reporting, the Chicago Tribune discovered that the supposed home address of three voters in the 17th Precinct of the 27th Ward was a vacant lot. The paper also discovered that votes had been cast for seven residents of a nursing home who denied having voted-their signatures on the ballot applications were all forgeries. In fact, one resident had no fingers or thumbs with which to write a signature. The fraud was so blatant that the resident without fingers or thumbs "was counted as having voted twice by the end of the day." Not surprisingly, Stevenson easily won the 17th Precinct, by a margin of 282 to 30.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Convictions for personation can be counted on the fingers of one hand after a nasty accident.
Here are the data for 2019, the year of three big sets of elections:
As the Electoral Commission puts it, There remains no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in 2019.
But on the basis there might be, we must change things. After which, it'll be kept as it is already done. Weird, as many people are more suspicious of Covid regulations persisting without need than this issue which has less justification.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
One of my earliest smart arsery’s was having to write about what I watched on telly the previous night when I was in the first year juniors. I wrote about an IRA member called Gerard Tuet (I think, not so smart now). My teacher corrected it to ‘Gerald’ and I had to pull her up... she admitted she as wrong, how things change!
It also used to amaze me that they used to think it made a difference that someone else dubbed Gerry Adam’s words! Maybe it did, but I couldn’t have it
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Fewer than 600 cases nationally in 2019? That hardly sounds like a problem that needs new legislation to me.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
I did actually.
The Scottish experience persuaded me that 16 and 17 year olds should have the vote, but for EU citizens a vote in general elections is off, if they want the vote they can apply for citizenship.
So you do see how vast the implications of their plans were. If Labour had won the election, they would have immediately enfranchised every person over the age of 16 in this country, thus shifting the balance of power well to the left of what either of us would like to see for the foreseeable future. This got almost no news coverage during the election, despite the fact that it approached Brexit itself in its potential consequences.
I must admit that I think all these decisions should be taken out of the hands of political parties and given to a completely independent body.
Political parties always seek partisan advantage. Labour are just as bad as the Tories (just look at the devolved Parliaments, albeit in Scotland it has backfired on them).
On enfranchising 16 year olds, I note that this is what Drakeford did for the most recent Senedd elections. Probably a contributory part of his success.
Are there any stats on how those 16 to 18 voted? Green and Nationalist be my guess.
Wasn’t Scotland 16 and 17 too?
Off top my head, Labour lowered voting age 21 to 18 in 66 - 70 parliament. Did anyone actually argue against at the time?
People leaving school at 15 getting jobs. Sex lives and married at 16? Dying in military service, before allowed to vote? Was there really an argument against?
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
Yes, that's interesting. I don't think one can quite conclude "it therefore doesn't make any difference", because highly engaged voters can be opinion leaders, directly by influencing others over time or indirectly by acting as canaries in the coal mine (if stories like that persist they will percolate down to the moderately interested etc.).
They started doing it in 2015. @viewcode told me after I had written that blog that they were doing so. If I had known I might well have backed Labour to do well in 2017, as YouGov were picking up their surge way before others
Quite the contrast - political nerds thought the wallpaper mattered, the public didn’t
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
Several months BEFORE Bloody Sunday to boot.
I really used to believe that we were the good guys.
It really is quite apparent that parts of the British Army were way out of control. I know that fair trials are nearly impossible after such a time, and have no desire for individual squaddies to be in the Dock for what seems to be at least tacitly sanctioned by the commanders.
Here's a question - do people routinely carry their driving licence with them? Mine lives in a cupboard.
Not since lockdown - just another item to sanitise!
Why, where did you put it?
In my travelcard wallet thingy, with my debit card. Now when I go shopping just carry my card loose in my coat pocket.
Keep my licence at home. Along with my library card, zoo membership, and other eclectic stuff.
But when you used your debit card why did you need to sanitise your driving licence?
You misunderstand. I don't NEED to sanitise my driving licence, because it's safely at home.
But if you hadn't kept it in 'safely at home' but left it in your wallet, you still wouldn't have needed to sanitise it - unless you tried to pay for something with it!
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
One of my earliest smart arsery’s was having to write about what I watched on telly the previous night when I was in the first year juniors. I wrote about an IRA member called Gerard Tuet (I think, not so smart now). My teacher corrected it to ‘Gerald’ and I had to pull her up... she admitted she as wrong, how things change!
It also used to amaze me that they used to think it made a difference that someone else dubbed Gerry Adam’s words! Maybe it did, but I couldn’t have it
Here's a question - do people routinely carry their driving licence with them? Mine lives in a cupboard.
Not since lockdown - just another item to sanitise!
Why, where did you put it?
In my travelcard wallet thingy, with my debit card. Now when I go shopping just carry my card loose in my coat pocket.
Keep my licence at home. Along with my library card, zoo membership, and other eclectic stuff.
But when you used your debit card why did you need to sanitise your driving licence?
You misunderstand. I don't NEED to sanitise my driving licence, because it's safely at home.
But if you hadn't kept it in 'safely at home' but left it in your wallet, you still wouldn't have needed to sanitise it - unless you tried to pay for something with it!
It would be in very close proximity to my card though!
As far as I can ascertain from what evidence there is, the Indian variant isn’t resistant to the vaccine. So might be worth going with Andy Burnham’s plan and vaccinating everyone quick sharp in Greater Manchester and East Lancs. We could do that in a fortnight.
Nah, just continue with the current rollout. We're going to be doing millions of first doses per week soon and the last 14-15m people will be done by the end of June and both doses done by the end of July. We just stay the course, don't overcomplicate anything.
Millions of first doses per week? Not saying you are wrong (chiefly because you have been spot on so far) but that sounds optimistic. That said I we have munched a huge amount of second dose debt up in the last few weeks.
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
I want the UK to remain an ID card free zone.
So do I. But collectively we have voted for a nationalist authoritarian party who are in favour of them. If we are going to do it, we may as well do it right.
That's not doing it right, that's doing it authoritarian. That facilitates a Chinese style social credit system. Utterly horrific.
Doing it quick, cheap and dirty in the finest British tradition, so it doesn't integrate with other systems, is the best safeguard of all.
You don’t like the Chinese social credit system then?
Are you against employee of the month as well?
You keep getting overlooked for a special bonus don’t you?
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
Yes, that's interesting. I don't think one can quite conclude "it therefore doesn't make any difference", because highly engaged voters can be opinion leaders, directly by influencing others over time or indirectly by acting as canaries in the coal mine (if stories like that persist they will percolate down to the moderately interested etc.).
They started doing it in 2015. @viewcode told me after I had written that blog that they were doing so. If I had known I might well have backed Labour to do well in 2017, as YouGov were picking up their surge way before others
Quite the contrast - political nerds thought the wallpaper mattered, the public didn’t
Surely low attention voters don't let much influence their vote, apart from a vague feeling about each party.
Quite likely true, but not a ringing endorsement of democracy.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Fewer than 600 cases nationally in 2019? That hardly sounds like a problem that needs new legislation to me.
600 cases too many. And that's only what's known about without paying too much attention, in an election that wasn't close, with the potential to get worse if it is left unresolved.
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
Yes, that's interesting. I don't think one can quite conclude "it therefore doesn't make any difference", because highly engaged voters can be opinion leaders, directly by influencing others over time or indirectly by acting as canaries in the coal mine (if stories like that persist they will percolate down to the moderately interested etc.).
They started doing it in 2015. @viewcode told me after I had written that blog that they were doing so. If I had known I might well have backed Labour to do well in 2017, as YouGov were picking up their surge way before others
Quite the contrast - political nerds thought the wallpaper mattered, the public didn’t
Well, some politics nerds thought the wallpaper mattered, anyway. The more perceptive were able to imagine how normal voters might regard such irrelevances...
Reminds me of discussions about how Mayor Daley "stole" the 1960 presidential election for Richard Nixon, by allegedly swinging the vote his way in Cook County.
It was downstate (Republican) versus Cook County (Democratic). and the bosses, holding back totals from key precincts, were playing out their concealed cards as in a giant game of blackjack. There was nothing anyone could do in Hyannisport except hope that Boss Daley of Chicago could do it for them. Daley was a master at this kind of election-night blackjack game. So were the men I was with in the back room—all of them tense until the A.P. ticker chattered and reported something like this: "With all downstate precincts now reported in, and only Cook County precincts unreported, Richard Nixon has surged into the lead by 3,000 votes." I was dismayed, for if Nixon had really carried Illinois, the game was all but over. And at this point I was jabbed from dismay by the outburst of jubilation from young Dick Donahue, who yelped, "He's got them! Daley made them go first. He's still holding back ... watch him play his hand now."
I was baffled, they were elated. But they knew the counting game better than I, and as if in response to Donahue's yelp, the ticker, having stuttered along for several minutes with other results, announced: "With the last precincts of Cook County now in, Senator Kennedy has won a lead of 8,000 votes to carry Illinois's 27 electoral votes." Kennedy, I learned afterward, had been assured of the result several hours before. Later that evening, Kennedy told Benjamin Bradlee of an early call from Daley, when all seemed in doubt. "With a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends," Daley had assured Kennedy before the A.P. had pushed out the count, "you're going to carry Illinois."
> particular since there was a documented history of vote rigging by the Republicans in downstate Illinois, not everywhere certainly, but hardly rare right up through the mid-60s.
In 1982, Illinois was the setting for "a hotly contested" gubernatorial race between Democratic Senator Adlai Stevenson III, son of former governor and presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson II, and Republican James Thompson... Stevenson claimed there was evidence of voter fraud in areas of the state outside of Chicago. Although those claims "did not pan out," it was clear that "the prospect of a close [judicial] look at the conduct of voting in Chicago did not please many of Chicago's Democratic kingpins, already under pressure because of the federal [criminal] investigation of charges of vote fraud in the [1982] election.…"
In its reporting, the Chicago Tribune discovered that the supposed home address of three voters in the 17th Precinct of the 27th Ward was a vacant lot. The paper also discovered that votes had been cast for seven residents of a nursing home who denied having voted-their signatures on the ballot applications were all forgeries. In fact, one resident had no fingers or thumbs with which to write a signature. The fraud was so blatant that the resident without fingers or thumbs "was counted as having voted twice by the end of the day." Not surprisingly, Stevenson easily won the 17th Precinct, by a margin of 282 to 30.
Daley was much less interested in elected JFK than defeating the Cook Co PA.
And did the Chicago Tribune - a Republican newspaper - investigate goings on downstate?
Am NOT saying that voter fraud did NOT happen. Just that it was NOT restricted to one side, certainly NOT in the Land of Lincoln.
And that voter ID requirements are NOT a panacea. Unless you think that a crocked machine - in the 27th ward or Podunk - would not or could not stoop to fiddling with THAT as well as other rules & regs?
Voter fraud is evil - as is voter suppression. The later is NOT a cure-all for the former.
Especially when the evidence for the former is practically non-existent.
As far as I can ascertain from what evidence there is, the Indian variant isn’t resistant to the vaccine. So might be worth going with Andy Burnham’s plan and vaccinating everyone quick sharp in Greater Manchester and East Lancs. We could do that in a fortnight.
Yes we are far enough down the track that surge vaccinating, instead of surge testing, in the final pools of the virus could be well worthwhile.
If we are going to do ID lets do it properly. Free to everyone. High tech, look at the likes of UAE, Estonia, Korea and copy best practices. Plan how it will integrate into govt services for the next 10-25 years.
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
I want the UK to remain an ID card free zone.
So do I. But collectively we have voted for a nationalist authoritarian party who are in favour of them. If we are going to do it, we may as well do it right.
That's not doing it right, that's doing it authoritarian. That facilitates a Chinese style social credit system. Utterly horrific.
Doing it quick, cheap and dirty in the finest British tradition, so it doesn't integrate with other systems, is the best safeguard of all.
One day you will realise that you are cheerleading an authoritarian government.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Fewer than 600 cases nationally in 2019? That hardly sounds like a problem that needs new legislation to me.
Here's a question - do people routinely carry their driving licence with them? Mine lives in a cupboard.
Not since lockdown - just another item to sanitise!
Why, where did you put it?
In my travelcard wallet thingy, with my debit card. Now when I go shopping just carry my card loose in my coat pocket.
Keep my licence at home. Along with my library card, zoo membership, and other eclectic stuff.
But when you used your debit card why did you need to sanitise your driving licence?
You misunderstand. I don't NEED to sanitise my driving licence, because it's safely at home.
But if you hadn't kept it in 'safely at home' but left it in your wallet, you still wouldn't have needed to sanitise it - unless you tried to pay for something with it!
It would be in very close proximity to my card though!
Here's a question - do people routinely carry their driving licence with them? Mine lives in a cupboard.
Not since lockdown - just another item to sanitise!
Why, where did you put it?
In my travelcard wallet thingy, with my debit card. Now when I go shopping just carry my card loose in my coat pocket.
Keep my licence at home. Along with my library card, zoo membership, and other eclectic stuff.
But when you used your debit card why did you need to sanitise your driving licence?
You misunderstand. I don't NEED to sanitise my driving licence, because it's safely at home.
But if you hadn't kept it in 'safely at home' but left it in your wallet, you still wouldn't have needed to sanitise it - unless you tried to pay for something with it!
It would be in very close proximity to my card though!
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
“ Political obsessives are the material of opinion polls, but not the fabric of the nation. It could be that in showing off about doing their homework, giving the "clever" answer rather than what they actually intend to do, they are making the polls less accurate.
How can pollsters improve their results? One possibility could be to ask each respondent how politically engaged they are, how often they watch QT, Newsnight, News at Ten etc and weight their responses accordingly, skewed heavily towards the politically disinterested. Maybe they should exclude the politically engaged from political opinion polls altogether.”
Dominic Cummings has addressed this! His (and the American David Shor's) position is that there has been a recent divergence between the politically engaged and unengaged, or more crudely between those who answer and do not answer opinion polls. (Note that I'm probably mangling it but life's too short to trawl through Cummings' 75,000-word blog posts right now, and especially as he has also taken to Twitter.) Before this divergence (in the old days) pollsters could simply rely on weightings to cover those who did not answer. Now that no longer works.
On the reliability of polling, my own beliefs (broken record mode=on) are that weighting is too often used to try and fix sampling errors, and that the randomisation technique pollsters rely on, which is randomising the last digit of phone numbers, clearly could never work in this country. Excluding those who did not vote last time is silly, and asking too many questions is counter-productive.
Your suggestion of excluding the politically engaged is interesting but since they tend to be the ones who answer polls, you might run into problems there.
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
Yes, that's interesting. I don't think one can quite conclude "it therefore doesn't make any difference", because highly engaged voters can be opinion leaders, directly by influencing others over time or indirectly by acting as canaries in the coal mine (if stories like that persist they will percolate down to the moderately interested etc.).
They started doing it in 2015. @viewcode told me after I had written that blog that they were doing so. If I had known I might well have backed Labour to do well in 2017, as YouGov were picking up their surge way before others
Quite the contrast - political nerds thought the wallpaper mattered, the public didn’t
Two ways of reading that though. One is the narrative you describe- it's a nerd/village/bubble story. The Great British Public have assimilated the story and rejected it. Maybe that's true.
The other is that this stuff does matter, but takes a while to take on its significance. That the nerds have got there first, not because they're smarter or better, but just because they give it more headspace. More fool them/us, really. But that over time, others will join them in agreeing that this just isn't on, when they get round to giving it attention.
That issue is at the heart of a lot of campaigning; it's why Liberal Democrats produce a bajillion leaflets at every election. It's why Ali Campbell and Dom Cummings insisted ruthlessly on endless repetition of trite slogans; because messages take time to seep into the public consciousness. Not hours or days- but months or years.
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Er... does 'the left' = @TSE these days? My how the world changes.
Yes.
If this is about Republicans why have the Electoral Commission been in favour of this since 2014? I've not seen a good answer for that instead it's copying American debates primarily.
Because the original electoral commission plans had a variety of permissible ID, the new plans want exclusively photo ID or a approval from the local council beforehand.
Good answer.
So pushing for an amendment for more forms of ID seems like a good thing to do then?
I'd go for the parcel example the government cites.
Here's the list of permissible ID that you need to pick up a parcel at your local post office.
We’ll accept any of these: • Birth certificate • Building society book • Cheque book • Cheque guarantee card • Council tax payment book • Credit card • Credit card statement (no older than 6 months) • Debit card • Full driving licence • Marriage certificate • Military photo ID • Police Warrant Card • Foreign national identity card • National Savings bank book • Valid passport • Paid utilities bill (no older than 6 months) • Standard acknowledgement letter (SAL) issued by the Home Office for asylum seekers • Trade union card
Most bank and credit cards dont even have your full name (not sure why?). Id guess most utility bills are paid online, typically by direct debit, so no way of knowing if it has been paid or not.
My major issue with debit cards at the moment is the brilliant idea of putting your full sort code and account number on the front of your card*.
That won't help fraudsters/thieves if you misplace your card.
*My new TSB card has nothing on the front and everything listed on the back, including the account number and sort code.
The other problem with cards is they're obsolete.
I've stopped carrying a wallet quite frequently. I pay with my phone or my watch.
I virtually never pay by cheque. Online yes since tge ability to conform.tge payee...but never by phone and I don't have watch technology. I don't trust either.
I trust phone technology much more than I trust cards, and it's more convenient by far. Use my fingerprint to unlock the phone, choose which card I'm using, tap the contactless, done.
@Pagan2 will be along in a minute to explain that we're all mad and should only ever trust specie coin. Everything else can be used by 'them' to track you.
As far as I can ascertain from what evidence there is, the Indian variant isn’t resistant to the vaccine. So might be worth going with Andy Burnham’s plan and vaccinating everyone quick sharp in Greater Manchester and East Lancs. We could do that in a fortnight.
Yes we are far enough down the track that surge vaccinating, instead of surge testing, in the final pools of the virus could be well worthwhile.
The NHS could do that under the radar if it so wished, simply pour the juice into the higher prevalence areas. Interesting idea, although @MaxPB might well be right insofar as we’ll be thru first doses in six weeks anyway.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
Several months BEFORE Bloody Sunday to boot.
I really used to believe that we were the good guys.
It really is quite apparent that parts of the British Army were way out of control. I know that fair trials are nearly impossible after such a time, and have no desire for individual squaddies to be in the Dock for what seems to be at least tacitly sanctioned by the commanders.
When I was very young, probably around the time of the Gerard Tuite incident so I’m talking 7-8, I had a very romantic view of the IRA & thought they were the good guys. As it turns out, my girlfriends family have possible connections going back a few generations it seems. I think the boys qualify for Eire if they’re any good at sport anyway!
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
Several months BEFORE Bloody Sunday to boot.
I really used to believe that we were the good guys.
It really is quite apparent that parts of the British Army were way out of control. I know that fair trials are nearly impossible after such a time, and have no desire for individual squaddies to be in the Dock for what seems to be at least tacitly sanctioned by the commanders.
When I was very young, probably around the time of the Gerard Tuite incident so I’m talking 7-8, I had a very romantic view of the IRA & thought they were the good guys. As it turns out, my girlfriends family have possible connections going back a few generations it seems. I think the boys qualify for Eire if they’re any good at sport anyway!
I would never romanticise the IRA. They were brutal bastards, as were the Loyalist paramilitaries. I just am disappointed that parts of the British Army were acting like Latin American death squads. Perhaps not surprised, but certainly disappointed.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Fewer than 600 cases nationally in 2019? That hardly sounds like a problem that needs new legislation to me.
In fact, from that link, only 142 of those 595 cases were (alleged) voting offences. Unfortunately they are not broken down further. From the short list of cases ending in caution or conviction, only two involved personation.
Photo ID is required in Northern Ireland and is entirely uncontroversial (It took me 10 minutes to get an Electoral ID card although I usually just use my Passport these days). It is hardly an affront to democracy to expect GB voters to be able to do the same.
But Northern Ireland had an actual, well-documented problem with electoral personation.
Great Britain? Not so much.
Sadly GB has an actual, well documented problem with electoral fraud.
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
What's wrong with my suggestion?
It eliminates personation, doesn't suppress voting, and is cheap.
I wrote a blog, that was refused on here as it happens, a few years ago suggesting exactly this, in order to sift out the over represented political nerds
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
“ Political obsessives are the material of opinion polls, but not the fabric of the nation. It could be that in showing off about doing their homework, giving the "clever" answer rather than what they actually intend to do, they are making the polls less accurate.
How can pollsters improve their results? One possibility could be to ask each respondent how politically engaged they are, how often they watch QT, Newsnight, News at Ten etc and weight their responses accordingly, skewed heavily towards the politically disinterested. Maybe they should exclude the politically engaged from political opinion polls altogether.”
Dominic Cummings has addressed this! His (and the American David Shor's) position is that there has been a recent divergence between the politically engaged and unengaged, or more crudely between those who answer and do not answer opinion polls. (Note that I'm probably mangling it but life's too short to trawl through Cummings' 75,000-word blog posts right now, and especially as he has also taken to Twitter.) Before this divergence (in the old days) pollsters could simply rely on weightings to cover those who did not answer. Now that no longer works.
On the reliability of polling, my own beliefs (broken record mode=on) are that weighting is too often used to try and fix sampling errors, and that the randomisation technique pollsters rely on, which is randomising the last digit of phone numbers, clearly could never work in this country. Excluding those who did not vote last time is silly, and asking too many questions is counter-productive.
Your suggestion of excluding the politically engaged is interesting but since they tend to be the ones who answer polls, you might run into problems there.
It reminds me of when Roger Waters was interviewing people for the talking bits on Dark Side of the Moon - one of the people he got to answer his questions was Paul McCartney, but because he was trying too hard, his quotes were not as realistic and so ended up on the cutting room floor.
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
Several months BEFORE Bloody Sunday to boot.
I really used to believe that we were the good guys.
It really is quite apparent that parts of the British Army were way out of control. I know that fair trials are nearly impossible after such a time, and have no desire for individual squaddies to be in the Dock for what seems to be at least tacitly sanctioned by the commanders.
When I was very young, probably around the time of the Gerard Tuite incident so I’m talking 7-8, I had a very romantic view of the IRA & thought they were the good guys. As it turns out, my girlfriends family have possible connections going back a few generations it seems. I think the boys qualify for Eire if they’re any good at sport anyway!
I would never romanticise the IRA. They were brutal bastards, as were the Loyalist paramilitaries. I just am disappointed that parts of the British Army were acting like Latin American death squads. Perhaps not surprised, but certainly disappointed.
Well I did say I was only 7 or 8! I think I just liked the daring escape from prison
If the PM was really interested in cracking down on electoral fraud he'd make obtaining a postal vote much harder but that's not going to happen given how many Tories use postals.
The more the left whine at the injustice of it all and how it is going to adversely affect the voters Boris courts, the more likely one is attracted to looking at the doublethink aspect to their attack.
Eventually the Tories will lose power and then the left take power and then make it harder for Tories to vote then you'll have no moral ground to complain.
No they will just let 16 year olds and other groups who currently don't have the vote take part.
I'd expect them to reduce the availability of postal votes to those overseas.
Make the older Tory vote stand in line to vote.
No mention of that in the discussion document
I'm talking about a future Labour government's plans.
This would be the tat for the Tory tit.
Because Labour's 2019 manifesto didn't already propose lowering the voting age to 16 and extending the franchise to millions of EU and non-EU residents alike in order to give themselves a permanent demographic advantage?
They're going to do whatever they're going to do. So, therefore, should we.
You sound like an American Southerner complaining about giving the blacks the vote.
And you sound a bit dense. Votes are for citizens, not residents. Labour wanted to rig the system in their favour in the most shameless manner in modern history, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
I did actually.
The Scottish experience persuaded me that 16 and 17 year olds should have the vote, but for EU citizens a vote in general elections is off, if they want the vote they can apply for citizenship.
So you do see how vast the implications of their plans were. If Labour had won the election, they would have immediately enfranchised every person over the age of 16 in this country, thus shifting the balance of power well to the left of what either of us would like to see for the foreseeable future. This got almost no news coverage during the election, despite the fact that it approached Brexit itself in its potential consequences.
I must admit that I think all these decisions should be taken out of the hands of political parties and given to a completely independent body.
Political parties always seek partisan advantage. Labour are just as bad as the Tories (just look at the devolved Parliaments, albeit in Scotland it has backfired on them).
On enfranchising 16 year olds, I note that this is what Drakeford did for the most recent Senedd elections. Probably a contributory part of his success.
Are there any stats on how those 16 to 18 voted? Green and Nationalist be my guess.
Wasn’t Scotland 16 and 17 too?
Off top my head, Labour lowered voting age 21 to 18 in 66 - 70 parliament. Did anyone actually argue against at the time?
People leaving school at 15 getting jobs. Sex lives and married at 16? Dying in military service, before allowed to vote? Was there really an argument against?
Boobs. Natural ones. Large and curvy.
Cleavage, as in impressive.
Ah. Got your attention now. 🤓
The age of consent being 16. Sweet 16. I’m sure, off the top of my head, when Sam Fox was 16 when she entered The Sun’s ‘search for next Page 3 star’ competition.
When was all that officially switched to 18? Was it a bit like the disappearance of Talcum Powder, no great fanfare on the basis it’s utterly embarrassing it was allowed to go on for so long?
I remember the Troubles being on the TV throughout my childhood.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
And 5 months later they sent 1 PARA into Derry to do it all again. Still, Johnny Mercer, eh?
Comments
I would still not be in favour of it but at least that approach has advantages as well as disadvantages to the status quo, unlike whatever cheap and quick option the govt will actually deliver.
But I only need to replace my phone, not everything in my wallet.
Make the banks responsible for ensuring they do not traffic stolen money; in effect, treat stolen money as stolen goods.
Same applies to web hosting and phone companies who allow fraudsters to use their services.
Nothing justifies disenfranchisement.
Political parties always seek partisan advantage. Labour are just as bad as the Tories (just look at the devolved Parliaments, albeit in Scotland it has backfired on them).
On enfranchising 16 year olds, I note that this is what Drakeford did for the most recent Senedd elections. Probably a contributory part of his success.
Be esp. careful IF you spy certain PBers lurking in the shadows!
Great Britain? Not so much.
Tory sleaze stories only affected voting intention among highly engaged voters
“ One group we have seen move away from the Conservatives in the last three weeks, however, is the very politically engaged. As well as weighting by demographic and past voting behaviour to ensure our samples are representative of the overall public, YouGov also weights by how much attention they pay to politics on a scale of 0 to 10. Anyone who self-reports themselves as an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, we define as having a high political attention. Anyone answering 3-7 is defined as medium attention and 0-2 is low attention.”
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/05/11/tory-sleaze-stories-only-affected-voting-intention
There's so little of it just now that some statistical blip somehow seems possible.
You turn up without photo ID? No problem. The returning office takes a photo of you, and you sign the back of it.
Later we can check off to see if anyone voted who's dead, or if a second person turns up. You could even do a spot check to see how many (if any) of the people who voted without ID were doing it fraudulently.
Dead simple. Doesn't suppress the vote. Costs practically nothing. Isn't ID cards by the back door.
The Ballymurphy verdict though. Jesus. A moment of real shame for the British army, and astonishing how we covered it up, and dragged our feet over allowing the truth to come out for 50 years.
“ Political obsessives are the material of opinion polls, but not the fabric of the nation. It could be that in showing off about doing their homework, giving the "clever" answer rather than what they actually intend to do, they are making the polls less accurate.
How can pollsters improve their results? One possibility could be to ask each respondent how politically engaged they are, how often they watch QT, Newsnight, News at Ten etc and weight their responses accordingly, skewed heavily towards the politically disinterested. Maybe they should exclude the politically engaged from political opinion polls altogether.”
http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-problem-with-opinion-polls-polls.html
If people are willing to commit fraud the potential for personation becomes much greater. And if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
Sad but true.
Interesting to note that in WA State it was Republican counties who led the way on all vote-by-mail elections. GOP was AOK with it where they were dominate, such as most of eastern Washington.
But NOT in King County and other counties that leaned Democratic. Gee, wonder why?
Wasn’t Scotland 16 and 17 too?
So far, it has not. Of course, evidence is not in from last week's elections across Britain, so watch this space.
Keep my licence at home. Along with my library card, zoo membership, and other eclectic stuff.
The next day I decided to beat the queue and arrived at 7:45 for a 9am opening. The queue was already round the block.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/our-views-and-research/our-research/electoral-fraud-data/2019-electoral-fraud-data
It also used to amaze me that they used to think it made a difference that someone else dubbed Gerry Adam’s words! Maybe it did, but I couldn’t have it
Doing it quick, cheap and dirty in the finest British tradition, so it doesn't integrate with other systems, is the best safeguard of all.
The change from system of unchecked in-person voting to verified vote by mail did NOT reveal the kind of "inevitable" increase in fraud detection you posit.
I've started using my phone for all payments (contactless, no with no limit) but I still carry my wallet with various cards including my driving licence and my disabled person's rail card (that nobody ever asks me for!)
Here are the data for 2019, the year of three big sets of elections:
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/our-views-and-research/our-research/electoral-fraud-data/2019-electoral-fraud-data
Two cases.
As the Electoral Commission puts it, There remains no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in 2019.
Question: IF the UK adopts voter ID requirements, what kind of lines (or computer delays & crashes) may be anticipated in the run up to elections?
Indeed, would seem to be in the interest of the current government to NOT provide for this possibility!
And what if there are more, but barely any more, would the cost of the new system have been worth it?
It was downstate (Republican) versus Cook County (Democratic). and the bosses, holding back totals from key precincts, were playing out their concealed cards as in a giant game of blackjack. There was nothing anyone could do in Hyannisport except hope that Boss Daley of Chicago could do it for them. Daley was a master at this kind of election-night blackjack game. So were the men I was with in the back room—all of them tense until the A.P. ticker chattered and reported something like this: "With all downstate precincts now reported in, and only Cook County precincts unreported, Richard Nixon has surged into the lead by 3,000 votes." I was dismayed, for if Nixon had really carried Illinois, the game was all but over. And at this point I was jabbed from dismay by the outburst of jubilation from young Dick Donahue, who yelped, "He's got them! Daley made them go first. He's still holding back ... watch him play his hand now."
I was baffled, they were elated. But they knew the counting game better than I, and as if in response to Donahue's yelp, the ticker, having stuttered along for several minutes with other results, announced: "With the last precincts of Cook County now in, Senator Kennedy has won a lead of 8,000 votes to carry Illinois's 27 electoral votes." Kennedy, I learned afterward, had been assured of the result several hours before. Later that evening, Kennedy told Benjamin Bradlee of an early call from Daley, when all seemed in doubt. "With a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends," Daley had assured Kennedy before the A.P. had pushed out the count, "you're going to carry Illinois." And in 1982?
In 1982, Illinois was the setting for "a hotly contested" gubernatorial race between Democratic Senator Adlai Stevenson III, son of former governor and presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson II, and Republican James Thompson... Stevenson claimed there was evidence of voter fraud in areas of the state outside of Chicago. Although those claims "did not pan out," it was clear that "the prospect of a close [judicial] look at the conduct of voting in Chicago did not please many of Chicago's Democratic kingpins, already under pressure because of the federal [criminal] investigation of charges of vote fraud in the [1982] election.…"
In its reporting, the Chicago Tribune discovered that the supposed home address of three voters in the 17th Precinct of the 27th Ward was a vacant lot. The paper also discovered that votes had been cast for seven residents of a nursing home who denied having voted-their signatures on the ballot applications were all forgeries. In fact, one resident had no fingers or thumbs with which to write a signature. The fraud was so blatant that the resident without fingers or thumbs "was counted as having voted twice by the end of the day." Not surprisingly, Stevenson easily won the 17th Precinct, by a margin of 282 to 30.
People leaving school at 15 getting jobs. Sex lives and married at 16? Dying in military service, before allowed to vote? Was there really an argument against?
It really is quite apparent that parts of the British Army were way out of control. I know that fair trials are nearly impossible after such a time, and have no desire for individual squaddies to be in the Dock for what seems to be at least tacitly sanctioned by the commanders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Tuite
Are you against employee of the month as well?
You keep getting overlooked for a special bonus don’t you?
Quite likely true, but not a ringing endorsement of democracy.
And did the Chicago Tribune - a Republican newspaper - investigate goings on downstate?
Am NOT saying that voter fraud did NOT happen. Just that it was NOT restricted to one side, certainly NOT in the Land of Lincoln.
And that voter ID requirements are NOT a panacea. Unless you think that a crocked machine - in the 27th ward or Podunk - would not or could not stoop to fiddling with THAT as well as other rules & regs?
Voter fraud is evil - as is voter suppression. The later is NOT a cure-all for the former.
Especially when the evidence for the former is practically non-existent.
Better still ditch the card and use your phone.
On the reliability of polling, my own beliefs (broken record mode=on) are that weighting is too often used to try and fix sampling errors, and that the randomisation technique pollsters rely on, which is randomising the last digit of phone numbers, clearly could never work in this country. Excluding those who did not vote last time is silly, and asking too many questions is counter-productive.
Your suggestion of excluding the politically engaged is interesting but since they tend to be the ones who answer polls, you might run into problems there.
The other is that this stuff does matter, but takes a while to take on its significance. That the nerds have got there first, not because they're smarter or better, but just because they give it more headspace. More fool them/us, really. But that over time, others will join them in agreeing that this just isn't on, when they get round to giving it attention.
That issue is at the heart of a lot of campaigning; it's why Liberal Democrats produce a bajillion leaflets at every election. It's why Ali Campbell and Dom Cummings insisted ruthlessly on endless repetition of trite slogans; because messages take time to seep into the public consciousness. Not hours or days- but months or years.
Does this story have legs? Far too early to tell.
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scrap-cash-bronze-age-witnessed.html
Will give Philip T my proxy - NOT!
So somewhere between 2 and 142.
It eliminates personation, doesn't suppress voting, and is cheap.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/why-pink-floyd-didnt-use-paul-mccartneys-contribution-to-dark-side-of-the-moon.html/
Cleavage, as in impressive.
Ah. Got your attention now. 🤓
The age of consent being 16. Sweet 16. I’m sure, off the top of my head, when Sam Fox was 16 when she entered The Sun’s ‘search for next Page 3 star’ competition.
When was all that officially switched to 18? Was it a bit like the disappearance of Talcum Powder, no great fanfare on the basis it’s utterly embarrassing it was allowed to go on for so long?
Still, Johnny Mercer, eh?