Snapshot of _Minister ‘sorry’ as veterans find ID card not valid for English elections_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/02/minister-sorry-as-veterans-find-id-card-not-valid-for-english-elections?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/02/minister-sorry-as-veterans-find-id-card-not-valid-for-english-elections?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other)
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Sorry doth butter no parsnips, Johnny.
He's constantly "sorry" for how much his party have let down the people he claims to champion, and yet he's still there with his blue rosette, toeing the party line on absolutely everything.
Johnny Mercer in a nutshell. Makes big, bold claims about the things he’s done, even if it’s then proven he’s not done much. Even if everything makes it look like he’s doing a decent job, but being undercut by the Tory party, he loses all credibility by continuing to stand by the party, and even more so when he deflects with “It’ll definitely be worse with Labour”, “You haven’t served, so you don’t know what you’re talking about”, and the newest one that showed me his new low: “You served, but you didn’t serve as long as me, or go to war as much as I did, so your service doesn’t count because you disagree with me.”
True story, I once tweeted the phrase "Johnny Mercer's wife" without naming her and she found the tweet about fifteen minutes later. She must have some sort of alert set up for his name.
Genuinely, this man will not shut up about veterans. But the only thing he has really achieved is making it harder to prosecute soldiers for war crimes.
The only valid form of ID, from now on, will be your Mecca Bingo Membership card, your saga holiday ticket, and an expired passport issued prior to 1976.
To be fair, you don't have to be a British citizen be part of the forces, you can be a Commonwealth, Irish, or Nepalese citizen and join the forces.
Edited to add, however, excluding the Ghurkas, they'd probably have the right to vote without being a British citizen.
Aww, thats a shame. There's no need to delete a wooshed comment. I could understand if he got defensive about it and felt silly though.
Never mind, thanks for filling me in.
This is what I though all along. The under 25's are being asked for ID all the time, pensioners not so much. I have older relatives with this problem, no passport and no driving license.
>A Tory MP was among those caught out by the new voter ID requirement as polls opened for the local elections in England and Wales. The Ipswich MP Tom Hunt said his dyspraxia was the reason he had lost his documents.
>
>Hunt sent a message to his local Conservative WhatsApp group stating: “Bit of drama. Turns out I have no appropriate ID to vote tomorrow. There is an emergency proxy option if you lose your ID ... who would like the honours?”
>
>But Hunt said that as a neurodiverse MP it was inappropriate for Labour and social media users to mock him for misplacing his documents.
A total farce, there is very little in-person voter fraud here to justify all this.
>Data from the Electoral Commission said that in elections in 2022, which covered local elections in England, Scotland and Wales, elections to the Northern Ireland assembly, a series of mayoral elections in England and six Commons byelections, **there were seven allegations of “personation” at polling stations, as the offence is officially known.**
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/03/voter-photo-id-plan-attacked-as-uk-data-shows-no-cases-of-impersonation
>"as a neurodiverse MP it was inappropriate for Labour and social media users to mock him"
The issue is Hunt, this is proof that this requirement, which is not based on an any actual significant personation problem, is discriminatory to the neurodiverse, and they're not the only group that has issues.
Personally, mocking aside, I think Hunt should be more concerned that **if** his MP isn't playing the disability card (assuming he hasn't lost that one too...) and it's genuinely the truth, then Tory changes have disenfranchised a disabled voter. Surely that should be the serious issue they should care about rather than virtue signalling over social media?
Why? It's not needed to vote in his situation.
This is just a suggestion to make them *less* secure, emergency photo ID is a terrible idea and would be subject to abuse.
It was a bit of a wake-up call to find out that lying about the purpose of legislation intended solely to benefit your party is apparently entirely legal.
To be fair they have also gerrymandered the electoral boundaries and reduced the number of seats from 650 to 600. One of the losers in this is Richard Holden currently party chair as they had no one better so there are positives oe they shot them in the foot over that too
They were always disenfranchising more opposition voters than their own ones, the odd example of individuals or groups probably doesn’t really change that. They’re just collateral damage.
MOD90, the serving forces ID card works, so the MOD100 should too, considering the rigamarole you have to go through to get one.
You need a gov.uk one login, which itself requires one of
UK photocard driving licence
UK passport
non-UK passport with a biometric chip
UK biometric residence permit (BRP)
UK biometric residence card (BRC)
UK Frontier Worker permit
It also does a facial scan. And asks questions (in my case some from payslips this year), then there's your service details which are then checked before it's authorised.
Realistically, it's more work than when I got my original id card when I signed up.
Would make sense but on the other hand the fewer types of id the pollsters to have to be trained to recognise the better really, and like you say you need an accepted form of id to get one anyway
A few days ago I had users here assuring me this wouldn't happen, and criticising me for suggesting it, becuase"poll workers can just have a print out of all the acceptable IDs in front of them".
I guess, that’s just my thinking, you’d want it to be simple so there’s less stuff to go wrong
rest of Europe it’s just national id or passport so I’d have thought it’d be the two common ones passport and driver’s licence, or the electoral id, but the electoral commission recommended a longer list following the trials and the government followed those, so *shrug*
You have to be joking? That's actually insane, although I guess the Tories thought that by the time elections came around, there'd be that few police left, it would be a really minor problem.
He isn’t though is he, I mean that was the entire point of voter Id, it was to deny as many people as possible a vote, the loss of any potential conservative votes is seen as nothing more than collateral damage to these gerrymandering arseholes
Thanks. How is this the nra solution??? Giving more id is vastly different to giving more guns. One just adds to deaths this lets people who have that id but not others vote without getting a voter certificate
And when this new form of ID is counterfeited, what happens then?
It's a fact that this whole ID idea is a 'solution' to a problem that doesn't exist https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/electoral-fraud-data
It's not up for debate, those are the facts.
Any additional money spent on this is a criminal use of public funds.
I had to get one of those bits of paper from my local council as ID.. I suffer from anxiety and depression and rarely leave my flat.. (Yes, I'm on benefits and PIP, and I've had to jump through hoops to get it )..
Fortunately, the polling station is within 20 metres of my flat, so I got myself over there this morning.. ( It took 10mg diazepam to get me out the door)..
Wearing my slippers and comfy clothes (pj trousers, t shirt and cardigan) I was accosted by a tory campaigner asking if I was voting their way.. to which I replied, "I'm in my pj's... I get esa and PIP and I have mental health issues... what do you fucking think?"...
Got to admit I'm experiencing some delicious schadenfreude at how this blatant attempt at gerrymandering has completely backfired in the government's face.
Those prevented or deterred from voting because of this would traditionally not be people likely to vote for Conservative party candidates in either General, by-elections or local government elections. Given the minuscule amount of voter fraud detected it has a far bigger effect on the electorate than any voter fraud.
Wasn't it found last time around that more pensioners than any other group had been turned away due to voter id requirements? I vaguely recall Mogg being deeply saddened that they hadn't turned away the right sort of person
You’re the one quoting Rees Mogg as proof. I am tired of people acting like because the guy who lied to the queen says it’s gerrymandering that it’s gerrymandering. Like him and Borris are two politicans who’s word should be taken with a pinch of salt
Yes it does. In addition to showing the insignificant absolutely minuscule incidence of voter fraud, it also demonstrates why that is the case - because a single person voting twice is not going to make a difference, and any attempt to make an actual difference is going to be very obvious long, long before it comes anywhere close to actually making a difference. That remains the case in the past, now, and into the future. There was never any need for voter id, and its introduction was purely an attempt to disenfranchise those whom the Tories thought unlikely to vote for them.
No it doesnt. All the evidence ive seen shows is there was not many cases of electoral fraud. Thats it. Nothing about how secure the system is and nothing about the future. There is. I spoke to an electoral officer in support of voter id and they made a food argument in support. They said it was quite scary how easy it would be to game he system before. And this person was an officer for a long time. Isnt that just getting into speculation?
The amount of people discovering they cant vote is kind of ridiculous
Veterancy should be a pretty clear cut form of ID imo, they literally did military service. This will definitely hit a lot of people unexpectedly who probably relied on this as ID in other contexts and were comfortable with it.
Hopefully they have passports in their place. But now Im worried somewhere there'll be a major oversight and on the day a common form of ID is rejected.
Even with basic self serving policies like this voter ID gerrymandering the Tories still manage to work at a level of incompetence that is truly impressive.
The people pretending they supported this idea because it wouldn't be a problem are usually the ones to be very audibly supportive our troops and armed forces....I'm ganna go out on a limb and think they didn't think this would impact their boys like this....the sun didn't tell you that did it Dave?!?!
Unfortunately voterID and the new regulations around postal votes were brought in because, there was genuine concern about abuse of the previous rather relaxed systems. The issue round ID is concern that some people don’t have photographic ID. Remember if you don’t have passport, drivers licence, bus pass. You can either apply for a postal vote or a Voter Authority certificate ( similar to the ones in Northern Ireland).
Johnny Mercer has consistently made the case for greater acknowledgment of the issues of Veteran welfare and I believe he should be admired rather than criticised for this.
I get that people think it's bad and that it's gerrymandering or whatever. However, it's been over a year since this has been in and while I am loath to give them credit they actually have tried to inform people. It's even on the poll card with a list telling you what is allowed. The veterans ID is not on the list, so why on earth did they think it was ok to use? It's a big list too, and it tells you how to apply for a new ID if you don't have one. It also says it's ok if the ID is out of date as long as the photo is correct. You can even apply to vote by proxy if you don't have your ID if you apply before 5pm on the day.
Again, ID cards bad, but after a year of needing one how are people still getting caught out? You have had a year to get it sorted and you didn't that's your fault not anyone else.
I actually thought veteran ID was accepted when I first read the story until I checked the back of my poll card again.
It's easy to imagine people scanning the back, thinking "yeah, driving license, passport, military IDs, disabled stuff, bus passes, ok" and turning up with a veterans ID assuming that they read it on the list.
I realised I couldn’t vote today. In the back of my mind Id use my driving licence, but I had to send that off to a mortgage company for proof of id. So one more disenfranchised voter here. Thanks Tories, a party I’ll never vote for.
Is it not with a high street bank? I choose based on physical presence as I didn't want to risk them losing my documents. Been with Coventry, Santander, Lloyds. Always taken into a local branch.
> However, it's been over a year since this has been in and while I am loath to give them credit they actually have tried to inform people.
it's about a year. if you didn't have local elections or a by election last year, then this might be the first election in your area under the new rules. the rush to get registered to vote before the deadline proves that people don't keep this stuff at the fore.
if the government had rolled out a voter ID card that was actually useful year round, ie could be used in shops and pubs, people might bother.
as the rules don't apply to scotland or wales (except UK parliament and welsh PCC elections) it means their first time might be the general election.
the information campaigns seem very patchy. i live in an area that had no advertising for it, only a pamphlet with the council tax notice.
I voted around lunchtime. Only person at the polling station and the guy on the door was pretty demanding when I approached the entrance.
'Need some ID before you enter' while completely blocking the door.
I understand that ID is needed but this was a pretty over the top way of enforcing it. Couldn't it be asked for while providing a name and the registration list is checked?
Snapshot of _Minister ‘sorry’ as veterans find ID card not valid for English elections_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/02/minister-sorry-as-veterans-find-id-card-not-valid-for-english-elections?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/02/minister-sorry-as-veterans-find-id-card-not-valid-for-english-elections?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sorry doth butter no parsnips, Johnny. He's constantly "sorry" for how much his party have let down the people he claims to champion, and yet he's still there with his blue rosette, toeing the party line on absolutely everything.
Johnny Mercer in a nutshell. Makes big, bold claims about the things he’s done, even if it’s then proven he’s not done much. Even if everything makes it look like he’s doing a decent job, but being undercut by the Tory party, he loses all credibility by continuing to stand by the party, and even more so when he deflects with “It’ll definitely be worse with Labour”, “You haven’t served, so you don’t know what you’re talking about”, and the newest one that showed me his new low: “You served, but you didn’t serve as long as me, or go to war as much as I did, so your service doesn’t count because you disagree with me.”
His wife also goes out to bat for him all the time which I find fucking hilarious.
I used to find it funny, until I realised they’re both a pair of absolute fucking shysters.
They are but how embarrassing. Imagine if your spouse came into work to bat for you in any other job. How humiliating.
True story, I once tweeted the phrase "Johnny Mercer's wife" without naming her and she found the tweet about fifteen minutes later. She must have some sort of alert set up for his name.
Well she has to be seen doing something since he employs her on our coin.
>Sorry doth butter no parsnips Honestly this gets me every time
Genuinely, this man will not shut up about veterans. But the only thing he has really achieved is making it harder to prosecute soldiers for war crimes.
or you know, just crimes.
Note that he doesn't see the solution as scrapping the unnecessary voter ID legislation but instead to correct the list of IDs for people he likes
The only valid form of ID, from now on, will be your Mecca Bingo Membership card, your saga holiday ticket, and an expired passport issued prior to 1976.
Perhaps also *Very* Mature Student ID?
Nah, Tories don't want educated people getting to vote.
So in this case "Service does not guarantee citizenship: Do you want to know more?"
I’m doing my part!
Do you want to know more?
To be fair, you don't have to be a British citizen be part of the forces, you can be a Commonwealth, Irish, or Nepalese citizen and join the forces. Edited to add, however, excluding the Ghurkas, they'd probably have the right to vote without being a British citizen.
[удалено]
it's a reference to a movie. starship troopers.
Wait... did this dude get upset at the quote? Brilliant.
Less upset, mostly just whooshed.
Aww, thats a shame. There's no need to delete a wooshed comment. I could understand if he got defensive about it and felt silly though. Never mind, thanks for filling me in.
yeah, comment was a bit of an "um actually" about citizenship and id, clearly missing that it was a reference.
Aww I missed it! What did they say? I'm glad some got the referrence, it was the first thing that sprung in to my mind reading the article :D
#ME2
You should join up. I think you’ve got what it takes to be a Citizen.
Join the Helldivers today and spread managed democracy through the galaxy
Hate Bugs. Love my xl bully. Love the Queen. Nuff said.
"oh no we've gerrymandered the wrong demographic!"
...again
Yes https://news.sky.com/story/jacob-rees-mogg-suggests-requiring-photo-id-to-vote-was-attempt-to-gerrymander-which-came-back-to-bite-tories-12881602
Well if Jacob Rees mogg says it is must be true!
This is just Jacob saying words out of his mouth.
> "oh no we've ~~gerrymandered~~ disenfranchised the wrong demographic!" FTFY
This is what I though all along. The under 25's are being asked for ID all the time, pensioners not so much. I have older relatives with this problem, no passport and no driving license.
Honestly I wouldn't believe Johnny Mercer if he wrote a paper on triangles having three sides. I'd go and find one and count them myself first.
If he told me the sky was blue I’d check outside just to be certain
In the UK that's actually quite a rare occurrence
The bits you sometimes see between the white or grey bits are called sky
Wait...there's something behind all that white and gray?!
Well, it has been a while, I could've misremembered
Looks black to me.
In that case RUN!
Euclid did it better.
It's in the name: tri-angle You don't need 3 sides to make one, just the angles
>A Tory MP was among those caught out by the new voter ID requirement as polls opened for the local elections in England and Wales. The Ipswich MP Tom Hunt said his dyspraxia was the reason he had lost his documents. > >Hunt sent a message to his local Conservative WhatsApp group stating: “Bit of drama. Turns out I have no appropriate ID to vote tomorrow. There is an emergency proxy option if you lose your ID ... who would like the honours?” > >But Hunt said that as a neurodiverse MP it was inappropriate for Labour and social media users to mock him for misplacing his documents. A total farce, there is very little in-person voter fraud here to justify all this. >Data from the Electoral Commission said that in elections in 2022, which covered local elections in England, Scotland and Wales, elections to the Northern Ireland assembly, a series of mayoral elections in England and six Commons byelections, **there were seven allegations of “personation” at polling stations, as the offence is officially known.** https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/03/voter-photo-id-plan-attacked-as-uk-data-shows-no-cases-of-impersonation
>"as a neurodiverse MP it was inappropriate for Labour and social media users to mock him" The issue is Hunt, this is proof that this requirement, which is not based on an any actual significant personation problem, is discriminatory to the neurodiverse, and they're not the only group that has issues.
Personally, mocking aside, I think Hunt should be more concerned that **if** his MP isn't playing the disability card (assuming he hasn't lost that one too...) and it's genuinely the truth, then Tory changes have disenfranchised a disabled voter. Surely that should be the serious issue they should care about rather than virtue signalling over social media?
> serious issue Sure > care about > Tories Pick one tho.
But the fact it was less secure before does justify this.
And by that logic, we must now close the loophole so Mr Hunt would be unable to vote next time?
Or maybe provide support for people to get id quickly
Why? It's not needed to vote in his situation. This is just a suggestion to make them *less* secure, emergency photo ID is a terrible idea and would be subject to abuse.
You do need id to vote it’s the law. Yet most here would want to repeal the law entirely which is less secure than emergency id.
It would be hilarious if Tories lost seats because their core voters couldn't vote
Damn! Our gerrymandering targeted the wrong voters!
Exactly as Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWjJkzig35I
It was a bit of a wake-up call to find out that lying about the purpose of legislation intended solely to benefit your party is apparently entirely legal.
> Gerrymandering Gerrymandering is manipulating constituency boundaries, this is plain voter suppression.
To be fair they have also gerrymandered the electoral boundaries and reduced the number of seats from 650 to 600. One of the losers in this is Richard Holden currently party chair as they had no one better so there are positives oe they shot them in the foot over that too
They were always disenfranchising more opposition voters than their own ones, the odd example of individuals or groups probably doesn’t really change that. They’re just collateral damage.
Well, you' re in for a treat then!
MOD90, the serving forces ID card works, so the MOD100 should too, considering the rigamarole you have to go through to get one. You need a gov.uk one login, which itself requires one of UK photocard driving licence UK passport non-UK passport with a biometric chip UK biometric residence permit (BRP) UK biometric residence card (BRC) UK Frontier Worker permit It also does a facial scan. And asks questions (in my case some from payslips this year), then there's your service details which are then checked before it's authorised. Realistically, it's more work than when I got my original id card when I signed up.
I'm leaving the Service this year and I have no intention of getting a veteran's ID card. It's completely pointless and a waste of money.
I didn't have a choice. They just mailed me one along with the veterans badge thing. Didn't cost anything though.
Oh, lucky me!
It's functionally useless as far as I can tell but I keep it around because the photo is my original basic training one and it's hilariously awful.
Ha! I look forward to flashing a photo of 18 year old me when I'm in my 80s!
Echo the other comment - you'll get it and your veteran badge without a choice
Would make sense but on the other hand the fewer types of id the pollsters to have to be trained to recognise the better really, and like you say you need an accepted form of id to get one anyway
A lot of people keep their old service id card anyway, it just gets a corner clipped off it so that military places know your not current.
A few days ago I had users here assuring me this wouldn't happen, and criticising me for suggesting it, becuase"poll workers can just have a print out of all the acceptable IDs in front of them".
I guess, that’s just my thinking, you’d want it to be simple so there’s less stuff to go wrong rest of Europe it’s just national id or passport so I’d have thought it’d be the two common ones passport and driver’s licence, or the electoral id, but the electoral commission recommended a longer list following the trials and the government followed those, so *shrug*
A police warrant card isn't valid either, slightly ironically for the PCC elections.
You have to be joking? That's actually insane, although I guess the Tories thought that by the time elections came around, there'd be that few police left, it would be a really minor problem.
He isn’t though is he, I mean that was the entire point of voter Id, it was to deny as many people as possible a vote, the loss of any potential conservative votes is seen as nothing more than collateral damage to these gerrymandering arseholes
There's an obvious way to fix the problem, I'm betting they won't want to entertain that though, they'd have to admit it's a huge waste of time.
The fix is add more id
Ah, the ol' NRA solution
Whats that?
The National Rifle Association's solution to any school shooting in the US is "more guns"
Thanks. How is this the nra solution??? Giving more id is vastly different to giving more guns. One just adds to deaths this lets people who have that id but not others vote without getting a voter certificate
And when this new form of ID is counterfeited, what happens then? It's a fact that this whole ID idea is a 'solution' to a problem that doesn't exist https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/electoral-fraud-data It's not up for debate, those are the facts. Any additional money spent on this is a criminal use of public funds.
Idk thats a problem for the future. It does exist. The problem was it was unsecure. It would be criminal not to secure our voting system
You're wrong. I've provided you with the hard evidence, if you're not willing to engage with reality there's no point in discussing this.
You have not proven that voter fraud will not happen in the future. Or that hsving no voter id is more secure than having id.
I had to get one of those bits of paper from my local council as ID.. I suffer from anxiety and depression and rarely leave my flat.. (Yes, I'm on benefits and PIP, and I've had to jump through hoops to get it ).. Fortunately, the polling station is within 20 metres of my flat, so I got myself over there this morning.. ( It took 10mg diazepam to get me out the door).. Wearing my slippers and comfy clothes (pj trousers, t shirt and cardigan) I was accosted by a tory campaigner asking if I was voting their way.. to which I replied, "I'm in my pj's... I get esa and PIP and I have mental health issues... what do you fucking think?"...
Got to admit I'm experiencing some delicious schadenfreude at how this blatant attempt at gerrymandering has completely backfired in the government's face.
Those prevented or deterred from voting because of this would traditionally not be people likely to vote for Conservative party candidates in either General, by-elections or local government elections. Given the minuscule amount of voter fraud detected it has a far bigger effect on the electorate than any voter fraud.
Wasn't it found last time around that more pensioners than any other group had been turned away due to voter id requirements? I vaguely recall Mogg being deeply saddened that they hadn't turned away the right sort of person
It's not even the first time this has happened lmao
Its hardly a blatant attempt. We did need to secure our electoral systems
*"We did need to secure our electoral systems"* riiight, except that all the actual evidence shows **no we didn't.**
No it didnt. It showed there wasnt much right now. It doesnt show that the system was secure or that it would not happen in the future
You can pretend they didn't but they themselves say it didn't work as intended because it targeted the wrong people (infamous Rees Mogg comment)
You really trust Jacob Rees Mogg to tell the truth?
Surely you can do better than that?
You’re the one quoting Rees Mogg as proof. I am tired of people acting like because the guy who lied to the queen says it’s gerrymandering that it’s gerrymandering. Like him and Borris are two politicans who’s word should be taken with a pinch of salt
So he lied to... paint his own party as authoritarian?
Or he lied because it was effecting Tory voters so wan the d the gov to change it so it didn’t
Yes it does. In addition to showing the insignificant absolutely minuscule incidence of voter fraud, it also demonstrates why that is the case - because a single person voting twice is not going to make a difference, and any attempt to make an actual difference is going to be very obvious long, long before it comes anywhere close to actually making a difference. That remains the case in the past, now, and into the future. There was never any need for voter id, and its introduction was purely an attempt to disenfranchise those whom the Tories thought unlikely to vote for them.
No it doesnt. All the evidence ive seen shows is there was not many cases of electoral fraud. Thats it. Nothing about how secure the system is and nothing about the future. There is. I spoke to an electoral officer in support of voter id and they made a food argument in support. They said it was quite scary how easy it would be to game he system before. And this person was an officer for a long time. Isnt that just getting into speculation?
The amount of people discovering they cant vote is kind of ridiculous Veterancy should be a pretty clear cut form of ID imo, they literally did military service. This will definitely hit a lot of people unexpectedly who probably relied on this as ID in other contexts and were comfortable with it. Hopefully they have passports in their place. But now Im worried somewhere there'll be a major oversight and on the day a common form of ID is rejected.
Even with basic self serving policies like this voter ID gerrymandering the Tories still manage to work at a level of incompetence that is truly impressive.
Jonny “the Wally” Mercer and his batshit wife have been quiet for a while. Hopefully this will keep them quiet, as shit as it is.
Just a bit late. Didn't know. Couldnt possibly. /s
How did they decide which ID was and wasn't acceptable?
Disenfranchise, disenfranchise, disenfranchise.
The people pretending they supported this idea because it wouldn't be a problem are usually the ones to be very audibly supportive our troops and armed forces....I'm ganna go out on a limb and think they didn't think this would impact their boys like this....the sun didn't tell you that did it Dave?!?!
They're pointless lumps of plastic anyway. They don't do anything. And if you served for 24 hours you can claim one.
Unfortunately voterID and the new regulations around postal votes were brought in because, there was genuine concern about abuse of the previous rather relaxed systems. The issue round ID is concern that some people don’t have photographic ID. Remember if you don’t have passport, drivers licence, bus pass. You can either apply for a postal vote or a Voter Authority certificate ( similar to the ones in Northern Ireland). Johnny Mercer has consistently made the case for greater acknowledgment of the issues of Veteran welfare and I believe he should be admired rather than criticised for this.
I get that people think it's bad and that it's gerrymandering or whatever. However, it's been over a year since this has been in and while I am loath to give them credit they actually have tried to inform people. It's even on the poll card with a list telling you what is allowed. The veterans ID is not on the list, so why on earth did they think it was ok to use? It's a big list too, and it tells you how to apply for a new ID if you don't have one. It also says it's ok if the ID is out of date as long as the photo is correct. You can even apply to vote by proxy if you don't have your ID if you apply before 5pm on the day. Again, ID cards bad, but after a year of needing one how are people still getting caught out? You have had a year to get it sorted and you didn't that's your fault not anyone else.
I actually thought veteran ID was accepted when I first read the story until I checked the back of my poll card again. It's easy to imagine people scanning the back, thinking "yeah, driving license, passport, military IDs, disabled stuff, bus passes, ok" and turning up with a veterans ID assuming that they read it on the list.
Then they’ve learned an important lesson about making sure you know what the rules are when something is important.
I realised I couldn’t vote today. In the back of my mind Id use my driving licence, but I had to send that off to a mortgage company for proof of id. So one more disenfranchised voter here. Thanks Tories, a party I’ll never vote for.
Fuck, I was about to say if you call your local authorities quick before 5pm you might be able to sort an emergency proxy vote, but it's 6pm now.
Didn’t know about that alternative solution, will keep that in the back of my mind
Is it not with a high street bank? I choose based on physical presence as I didn't want to risk them losing my documents. Been with Coventry, Santander, Lloyds. Always taken into a local branch.
I went with L&C
> However, it's been over a year since this has been in and while I am loath to give them credit they actually have tried to inform people. it's about a year. if you didn't have local elections or a by election last year, then this might be the first election in your area under the new rules. the rush to get registered to vote before the deadline proves that people don't keep this stuff at the fore. if the government had rolled out a voter ID card that was actually useful year round, ie could be used in shops and pubs, people might bother. as the rules don't apply to scotland or wales (except UK parliament and welsh PCC elections) it means their first time might be the general election. the information campaigns seem very patchy. i live in an area that had no advertising for it, only a pamphlet with the council tax notice.
I think, given that even Tory MPs were turned away at the polls, that maybe their attempts to inform people weren’t particularly effective.
I voted around lunchtime. Only person at the polling station and the guy on the door was pretty demanding when I approached the entrance. 'Need some ID before you enter' while completely blocking the door. I understand that ID is needed but this was a pretty over the top way of enforcing it. Couldn't it be asked for while providing a name and the registration list is checked?