@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 @JorgeStolfi @TimWardCam @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

I agree totally with you. I don't see why we should lose our right to a postal vote in the UK.

I think postal voting in America had been demonised by the orange man baby because he lost. He used it as an excuse to try and over throw an election he lost.

So judging our system through that lens isn't helpful.

@jacqui76 @margarance @TimWardCam @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6

But that is the point. Trump could do that because it was nearly impossible for the election officials to convince his voters that there had been no fraud in the mail vote.

Same for electronic voting. Even when there are paper ballots that can be counted, it still gives space for months of "it was stolen!" claims...

@JorgeStolfi @jacqui76 @margarance @TimWardCam @Loukas @ChrisMayLA6 I think that history shows us that ballot boxes can be stuffed if the people in power have a mind to do so.

The Conservative Party in the UK have manufactured an issue, just as Trump did over the water, in an attempt to benefit themselves. It's not the first time that "problems" have been manufactured to justify a govt's "solution" (nor was Trump's), and it won't be the last