@ChrisMayLA6

However, part of the United Kingdom already has #voterID laws, which I don't hear much mention about or outcry over.

#NI in 2002 had The Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act
introduced which amended the Representation of the People Act 1983 which required all #NI voters to have photographic identification at polling stations.

So if it acceptable for us in #NI to have to produce ID, why isn't acceptable to the rest of the UK?

@Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

That is the problem right there. When it happens in England, there is uproar but when it's the other three nations - no-one is interested.

Maybe if those shouting about this, paid some attention how it is working in NI, then there could be a more reasoned debate.

So, if we are UK - then we all have the same voting laws or we don't. So bring the rest of the UK into line with #NI or remove the requirement from #NI

@jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

The myth-or-legend was that quite a lot of dead people used to vote in NI. This didn't happen in GB. It's not unreasonable to match the response to the observed threat.

@TimWardCam @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

There definitely was evidence of voter fraud in 1980's in NI. Many believed that Sinn Fein vote was affected more by that. However in 1983 for example 149 people arrested at polling stations, 104 were convicted.

Firstly think of the situation in NI at the time - why do think they may have wanted to discredit the British voting system - political statement? Also, was 104 convictions really that big of an opposed threat that required voter ID laws?

@TimWardCam @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

However when ID laws were introduced it reduced the number of incidents. Plus it helped improve the confidence of the voting public in the electoral system. So it worked.
#NI proved the system works.

So why wouldn't you want to increase the confidence of the GB voting public in elections.

Plus the real problem in GB is FPTP - which #NI doesn't use for Assembly or Local Elections either.

@jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6 There's no lack of confidence with in-person voting in GB. The fraud (both risk and actual) is in postal voting, which unlike in-person voting is wide open to all sorts of attacks (which I won't detail in case anyone reading this hasn't yet thought of them all).

If the Tories had actually wanted to improve the integrity of elections they'd have done something like removing postal votes on demand, not attacking in-person voting where there isn't a problem.

But hey ... guess what ... the Tories get lots of postal votes, so they wouldn't do anything to make postal voting less convenient.

@TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

The only purpose of an election is to convince the LOSERS that they don't have the support of the majority.

Thus it is not enough that a voting system be secure: it must be OBVIOUSLY secure, so that not even the losers can claim that the election was stolen.

Electronic voting, mail voting, advance voting, voting from home are all "enhancements" with negligible or negative advantages that inevitably allow claims of fraud. They should be eliminated

@JorgeStolfi @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6 *Some* means must be found for people who can't get themselves to the polling station to vote.

One way I've seen this done (in Kosovo) is that in the days before the election, polling staff take essentially a mobile polling station to the disabled person's house (paperwork and ballot box). I imagine this is mind-blowingly expensive.

@TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

Why would it be expensive?

The people would be drawn from the same pool of staffers at fixed voting stations; so it would be unpaid civic duty, like jury duty. The van could be rented for the day.

Mail voting also has its costs: not just sending out the ballots and processing them, but also (mostly, I guess) ensuring the security of the process at all stages. And there is a diffuse cost at the post offices.

@JorgeStolfi @TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

As someone who lives abroad and would be disfranchised by the removal of my postal vote, and given the 15 Year limit on voting from abroad has finally been lifted, how would you propose to protect my right to vote?

@margarance @TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

🧵‍>
Vote by mail for citizens abroad may be acceptable since it is usually a small number of votes and it does not seem as easy to mess with it as with mail vote for anyone who asks.

IIRC the US considered allowing internet voting for soldiers abroad, but in the end concluded that but was too unsafe and opted for mail.
🧵‍>

#Elections #VotingRights #VotingByMail

@margarance @TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas
@ChrisMayLA6

🧵‍>
When I was living in the US, I could vote in the nearest Brazilian Consulate. It was inconvenient, but seemed a reasonable compromise. Even today people here have to register to vote in a specific station, and if they are traveling on the day they fill a form at any station, which will waive the fine but does not let them vote. (Yes, there is no excuse for this constraint in the age of the internet.)
🧵‍>

@margarance @TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas
@ChrisMayLA6

🧵‍>
However, it is not reasonable to require that voting be made possible to *everybody*. Absentees will exist even in countries where voting is mandatory (like here).

What matters is that the lost votes are not intentionally biased against any candidate or party. Which seems a common situation in the US, because of sparsely and "strategically" located voting stations. A situation which the GOP is by all means trying to make worse.

@JorgeStolfi @margarance @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6 In my experience political parties in the UK have little to no influence over where polling stations are (this may vary across the country, I wouldn't know).

Running elections is the one council function where the officers are not told what to do by councillors. They will listen, and if all councillors from all parties say, using their local knowledge, "location A is a crap place for a polling station, location B is better" then the officers might well decide on B rather than A, but there is no mechanism whereby just one party can achieve their own preferred locations.

@TimWardCam @JorgeStolfi @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

But what facts? Where is the evidence that postal voting by Brits abroad is used fraudulently? Because that would be the only convincing argument for stripping us of our right to vote (which a ban on postal votes would do). Perception and suspicion should not be grounds for disenfranchising anyone.

@margarance @TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

The problem is not that fraud occurs, but that CLAIMS of fraud by the losers cannot be dismissed easily, or at all. See all the drama that Trump created in the US: more than 50 lawsuits, several expensive audits and recounts, accusations and death threats to election voters, incessant lying by Fox News and other right-wing sources and candidates, and much more -- ending in the Jan/6 riot. All because of mail and electronic voting. >>

@margarance @TimWardCam @jacqui76 @Loukas
@ChrisMayLA6

>> And all that mess was copied by Bolsonaro here in Brazil, including the attempted coup...