The misstep was embarrassing for Johnson because the requirement to bring photo ID is a stipulation of the Elections Act which he introduced in 2022 while still in Downing
It’s not the onion, because you can’t make this shit up.
snort
As a person with no horse in the grinder, why is requiring ID a good thing in England/EU a good thing, but bad in the USA?
I’m very confused.
As someone who comes from a country where we do require photo ID for voting, not requiring one feels absurd, so I asked the same question. Apparently in the US, there is a part of the population that doesn’t normally get photo ID and that part is mostly poor people and minorities and photo ID laws are used as means of disenfranchisement, similar to having the voting days during business days (when many people can’t come to vote) or having voting stations far away in an area with limited public transport options.
Where I live in Finland, the police will actually grant you a temporary photo ID only for voting if you don’t have one, although most people have passports. There are early voting stations in basically every post office for a week and the main voting day is always on a Sunday. No excuse to miss voting.
I’ve only missed one voting during my life, at a time when I was living in another country and there was no consulate in the part of the country I was in. Nowadays there’s also the option of mail-in voting when outside the country, I don’t know if it wasn’t a thing back then or I just didn’t know.
That’s not to say I didn’t want some improvements in our system: I’d like to see ranked choice voting or something similar here, there are some smaller parties I’ve been voting and it seems they seldom have a chance.
We’ve never really needed to use photo ID in England and never had problems with fraud. You can only visit one polling station one time, the system worked fine. The Tories changed it to deliberately disenfranchise the poor who are less likely to have these types of ID, and they did this because they’re scum.
I feel like there’s a simple solution: Government issues free photo IDs to everyone, you need to pay for it if you destroy/lose it while it’s still valid.
There was an ID card system in the works in the UK a few years ago, but it was scrapped. There was a lot of opposition to it ok the grounds of civil liberties and privacy.
There’s a lot of wariness about a “paper’s please” society in the country, there hasn’t been a national ID system since just after WW2. Driver’s licenses and passports are used a sort of substitute, but even the UK drivers license doesn’t have to be carried to actually drive.
The proposed ID card system was also attached to an identity database system that was considered to have a lot of features creep and be too invasive.
A free, simple ID card system would probably make a lot of sense (the existing drivers license system could be repurposed/expanded for it), but there’s just a lot of uneasiness about it among the British for better or worse.
That’s where you guys draw the line? With automated facial recognition vans, CCTV everywhere, among other things, the UK is certainly not a country that comes to mind when I think “civil liberties and privacy”.
To be fair when they say recently they mean about 20 years ago. It was the Blair government that were looking to do this when I was at school in the early 2000s.
France does this.
That really brings into perspective. Thank you. This is WILD.
Quick edit; how is voting not work time off for fucking EVERYONE
I’d like to see ranked choice voting or something similar here, there are some smaller parties I’ve been voting and it seems they seldom have a chance.
Ranked choice voting would make sense maybe in the presidential elections, but otherwise all elections in Finland are D’Hondt method proportional representation, with open lists. Ranked choice would bring nearly zero benefits, and lots of complication to the vote counting process.
Voting ID requirements have not been universally seen as a good thing in the UK, there’s been a lot of opposition to it.
There is no national ID in the UK, instead there is a patchwork of secondary ID systems such as passports, drivers licenses, travel cards etc. In most cases they have a monetary cost or are not universally available.
It’s been seen as an attempt at voter suppression as many poorer British people may not have suitable ID. The rules also reject many forms of ID commonly held by younger voters, while accepting a wider range of ID held be older voters. There is supposed to be a free voting ID available but implantation has been left to local councils and has been criticised as hard to access.
There is no national ID in the UK
This is so wild.
It’s never been a problem until now.
If Blunkett had got his way we’d all have ID cards. Though if that had happened the Tories wouldn’t have introduced ID cards for elections as it wouldn’t have given them advantage.
Your National Insurance number is as close as it gets. Similar to Social security number in America. Receive it at 16 and it doesn’t change except in cases of fraud. A record of all taxe and National Insurance contributions you make. Goes towards pension.
Seriously? They made voting ID a council issue? Northern Ireland has had voting ID for a while and it’s dead easy to get one, only thing I needed to pay was postage on a 2nd class stamp. Pretty good as well as it basically makes a free photographic ID available
So, you had it mailed? Wouldn’t that leave houseless people on the short end of this “dead easy” stick?
-
You can get stuff mailed to a sheltered accomodation or homeless shelter
-
You generally needed the polling card and an address to register to vote before this system, so I don’t see how it makes a difference.
-
As a person with no horse in the grinder, why is requiring ID a good thing in England/EU a good thing, but bad in the USA?
There is no national ID in the UK
True, but it also isn’t really answering the parent comment’s question, as there is also no national ID in the US.
Did you only read the middle paragraph? They said it’s not seen as a good thing by some people and set out the problems with it.
Even the paragraph you highlighted is part of explaining why it’s not it’s not seen as a good thing in the UK.
Did you only read the middle paragraph?
I read that. I also read the first sentence in the parent’s question. He was asking why there was a difference between the US and the UK.
The comment I responded to was saying that not everyone does see it as a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that the fact that there is no national ID explains a difference.
He was asking why there was a difference between the US and the UK.
The comment you were replying to was saying there isn’t a difference between the US and UK. It’s a divisive issue in both with some people pushing for it and some thinking it’s a bad thing.
The US (mostly the trending fascist party) does whatever possible to make sure the least amount of people possible get the opportunity to vote and for the people who do vote, make sure their vote does not count as much as possible. It also varies per state.
-
not giving out a national identification card, but then requiring an identification card to vote
-
voting districts with crazy borders to make absolute certain that the far right gets the most representatives possible https://www.maproomblog.com/xq/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wapost-gerrymander-1024x687.jpg
-
reducing the amount of voting centers every year in areas like major cities that vote more left so that the people would have to travel an hour or more to vote and without a car, it is almost impossible
-
Voting is not a public holiday and many states do not allow voting by mail. Combined with the before point removes many poor people’s ability to vote at all
-
there is a right wing effort to remove as many left leaning votors as possible from registration for minor errors
-
Armed party members at elections recently to intimidate voters, especially if they “look like the left demographic”
-
the “electoral college” which can just decide to not cast the vote that actually decides elections for the candidates that the citizens voted for
It is really batshit crazy over there. It seems like the right gets away with all of this crazy stuff and then when the left is back in power, almost nothing is done to change it back with regards to voting.
-
It’s bad in the USA because they have an aversion to all forms of registration.
It’s unnecessary in most of Europe because they already have functional registries.
I don’t know enough about UK election procedures to figure out why they thought it was necessary. It’s probably not, but it’s easy points for someone wanting to signal that they’re doing something against the fictional illegal immigrants who are supposedly voting en masse whenever the right wing politicians don’t get their way…
That is…not why it’s bad in the USA. It’s bad in the USA because it’s used as a tool for voter suppression historically against black and brown people.
But sure, we’re all afraid of registration, when you have to do that to vote either way 🙄
it’s easy points for someone wanting to signal that they’re doing something against the fictional illegal immigrants who are supposedly voting en masse whenever the right wing politicians don’t get their way…
Yeah, that’s basically it.
It isn’t. There was no evidence of voting fraud but it does reduce the number of people who vote, and specifically older people who vote conservative are more likely to have photo ID via bus passes, etc, while younger voters in poor areas are likely to have none.
You can apply for ID free, but that requires effort that a lot of people can’t be bothered with, especially when they constantly being told that “both sides are as bad as each other”.
It’s a very USA specific thing and people in other countries are often surprised this is such a big deal, because in many countries it’s a non-issue. Mostly because having an ID is so ubiquitous in many places. People are often surprised that many Americans don’t possess ID.
There’s a lot of stuff about the US elections that’s surprising to e.g. Europeans. Why do so many not have ID? Why do you so often have to wait in line for hours? Why do some areas apparently have not enough polling places? Why do I need to register to vote, sometimes repeatedly? Why is it so hard to get time off work to go vote? A lot of these seem like basic requirements for a functioning democracy.
The US election system has a bunch of historical quirks. And also to my eyes there seems to be a conscious effort from some government officials to make people not go vote.
The US election system has a bunch of historical quirks
The chief one seems to be “why provide all those voting booths for blacks, when only their plantation owner needs to vote?” and then never updated it.
It probably works fine in countries where the government issues everyone with ID cards. But in countries where you don’t have to have ID cards (UK, USA etc) it just acts as a form of voter suppression.
In Europe, people have an ID since they are born. And, you need it to go to your neighboring countries which are never far away. Not having an ID is quite rare. You even have countries delivering it for free.
Also note that passports are valid IDs.
The Tories who were in power pushed it based on right wing conspiracy theories about immigrants because vulnerable populations least likely to have government documentation vote overwhelmingly labour.
It didn’t really work though because old people also often let their passport and driving license lapse, department of work and pensions also already uses heavy handed documentation requirements as a way of fucking over people with mental health issues, criminal records, poverty etc who are less likely to have ID so the amount of people with ID in those groups is uncharacteristically high.
So yeah it’s a bit of a nothing really, reduces voters on all sides but mostly the left and doesn’t really seem to do much else.
One of the rights many mottos is “if it hurts everyone terribly, but hurts the left even a little bit more, then it’s a good plan and we should do it”.
The thing is, in the US it’s used to suppress voting because getting a valid ID that’s recognized requires things like having a home with a permanent address, or the ability to drive, things that lower income households or the homeless are unable to provide.
In America, it’s intended to disenfranchise the minority class.
Same in the UK.
And people forget how much of a PITA it is to get. Waiting in line for 4 hours to get an ID is something I’ll do once a decade for my driver’s license because I need it to drive and I drive several hours a day.
For people who don’t have car, they may not consider the inconvenience worth it just to have the privilege of waiting a few more hours to vote.
“Motor Voter” laws that allowed people to register to vote while renewing their license were designed to make it harder for the poor to vote by making them go through a different process than drivers. Voter ID requirements took it to the next level by requiring them to ALSO go get a license to vote.
Can’t speak for the UK/EU, but in the US, there’s a long history of state governments trying to disenfranchise minority voters, especially in the South where slavery was legal for longer. This was accomplished in the past with so-called “literacy tests,” and more recently by closing certain polling booths or understaffing them. Since millions of Americans don’t have IDs that fit strict standards, many see these voter-ID laws as another form of disenfranchisement.
It’s a bad thing everywhere. The Tories brought it in because they thought it would suppress voters who were likely to vote against them.
Imagine going through the soul crushing hell of being a committed and earnest election worker in a failing 21st century democracy and then the clouds part and in one shining moment you can tell boris you have no idea who he is, but he’ll need ID.
Like seriously consider it. Do you say “on your bike son”? Can you resist flipping him off? The joy he gave that one person might be the single act of good in johnson’s entire life.
On bike? Flipping off? Boris Johnson?
I wonder how Boris feels about the current crop of carbrained Conservative candidates, given that supporting bikes was one of the few good things he did as mayor.
That’s a big part of the Boris Johnson myth. The “Boris bike” system in London was actually created by his Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone. The system officially opened shortly after Boris became mayor, who then took the credit for it.
The guy does ride a bike, but not as much as other’s coattails.
I’ve seen Boris “expansion of the london cycling network” up close and personal the few times I’ve decided to go for really long cycles away from London zones 1, 2 and 3 - the cycling “network” out there is basically made up of tiny blue signs with a white stylized cyclist symbol every half a mile or so along the side of the road and nothing else (not even paint on the road, just near invisible signs), but that was enough for him to claim he had added a huge number of miles to the London cycling network.
Boris “achivements” are invariably just traditional posh-boy lying: in a very strict sense not a lie, but using words (“cycling network”) that leads others to understand one thing (actually usuable, properly marked “cycling lanes” that make it safer to cycle) which is completelly different from the reality (little signs on the side of the road that do not add up to a cycling lane or are even easilly spotted by drivers).
For sure, but even that is above the extremely low bar that the current conservatives (both the party and conservatives in general) have set.
Not sure if you’re serious or not.
He’s LITERALLY the reason Tory MP’s are both fucking useless, or leaving/quitting in droves. When he gutted the party for not backing his Brexit vote, he got rid of lots of established conservative politicians, replacing many with populists.
The Conservative party doesn’t have many actual conservatives in it any more. Many feel that they’ve been forced out, and even those looking to join feel that they’re just a right-wing party on the tails of Reform.
It’s one of the reasons I’m so excited for a GE. It’ll likely result in a Labour landslide, but it’ll also potentially be the biggest decimation of the Tories since Thatcher, probably more so because she was still ultimately a Conservative. If they can’t root out the populists, the party is basically dead.
Serious about him being better than the current crop on this very specific issue? Yes. Other than that, he’s a piece of trash and a hack of a politician, so I don’t disagree with you on that point.
Although frankly I’d be happy if conservatism was buried altogether, and not just “populist” conservatism. Both forms are incredibly harmful to the poor and the disadvantaged in general.
I’m sorry sir, but you could be any random mental health patient.
What a bellend
Boris Johnson is a dumb person’s idea of an intelligent person.
I thought he was an intelligent person’s idea of a dumb person.
He has at best an intelligence a bit above average, tough seems to believe he’s some kind of genious.
Like in so many things, there seems to be a sort of Dunning-Krugger Effect when it comes to intelligence, with the “just above average” up to what I call “entry level genious” - i.e. those just about intelligent enough to frequently outsmart most people - often vastly overestimating their own mental capabilities.
(Think Elon Musk if you need another example).
It probably doesn’t help that in the environment he grew up and lives, those who intellectually can run circles around him won’t actually tell it to his face and instead just use him if they can or keep quiet to avoid some kind of negative reprecursions if they’re in a position of less power.
What he does have which is vastly superior to most people is the lack of scruples and of morals: there are definite advantages in terms of outwittting others for those who lie and deceive with the same naturality as breathing. That is however not intelligence, just a mix of sociopathy and public school training.
(Think Elon Musk if you need another example).
I think Johnson and Musk are both great examples of people who have that Used Car Salesman style emotional intelligence needed to sell ice to an eskimo. But they lack the curiosity or self-reflection that one might need to do anything useful.
What he does have which is vastly superior to most people is the lack of scruples and of morals
They’re both failkids who rose upwards from their parents’ petite bourgeois class position. They were surrounded by people who also lacked scruples and morals, but never got to really push pedal to metal by hooking up with an insider like Jeff Epstein or Peter Thiel.
Both of your comments also remind me of Coinbase’s Balaji dude
No way, he’s a fool. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence would not have walked, talked, and TOUCHED people with Covid. He nearly died, OUR Prime Minister during Covid. It was a moment when we truly teetered on the edge and he was the creator. I’ll agree about the morals though, serial cheater.
Edit: I saw David Cameron at a social event a few weeks after resigning, hair down(so to speak), beer and removed in hand. He knew what shitshow he was leaving behind.
More specifically, he’s a public school boy’s characterisation of a modern rakehell
Why not both?
Absolutely
Can we turn him away from the country for you know, forgetting to bring an actual identity ?
He’s not hurting the people he needs to be
Master of publicity
Everyone makes mistakes
Yes, but the policy that requires voters to have photo ID was created by Boris himself when he was prime minister. That’s the irony.
I legit did a Nelson, “HA-HA.” As soon as I read the headline
And he farted yesterday.
!leopardsatemyface@lemm.ee is slightly more active (that one looks like it’s been closed).
Be a shame if he got deported.
I hear people are being turned away. But whenever I vote, I stroll down the road to a basically empty room, in and out in a couple of minutes. All in all, 20 minutes max. If I forgot ID it would be very little effort to just go get it.
Am I just incredibly lucky to live that close?
Yes.
You’re lucky that you live close enough, or that you’re not popping in on your dinner break, or on your way between jobs, and don’t have time to nip home to pick up your ID.
Your lucky that you’re not elderly or disabled and struggling to get to the polling station at all, never mind having the opportunity to get there and back easily.
I live in a place where ID isn’t required. In fact, I can register there without ID. It’s really nice, and voter fraud is quite minimal despite this
.
Los Angeles California
Needing ID is a brand new idea for british conservative party. Its been in place since last local elections (a year ago?), and yeah it is a stupid idea that solely disenfranchises people
Agreed, and probably the main aim of the change. It forces people to have a photo ID when they wouldn’t necessarily otherwise.
I don’t know if this is the case in other countries, but in the UK if you don’t drive and don’t require a passport then you wouldn’t naturally have a photo ID. Forcing people to choose between “volunteering” all their personal data and being allowed to vote is not an action of a benevolent democratic government.
I’m in Arizona and have had to wait in line for a couple of hours before. They also purged a bunch of voter registrations before without informing people, so quite a few had to cast provisional ballots and hope they got counted.
Yes, sometimes people have to go to the next town. But, the easier is when you can vote by mail.
Not really, my local polling place I drive straight past on my way home, it probably takes five minutes out of my day at most.
Any functioning democracy should be like this.
Why would this be the onion? Why should they let him vote without an ID
You’d think that the Prime Minister who implemented the rule to require a photo ID to vote would then not forget his own photo ID at the next time he tries to vote. Smells distinctly oniony.
seems like the opposite of irony to me. it’s exactly the policy he intended
The irony is that he forgot, not that he was denied
The Onion isn’t ironic, it’s satire.
