More than 400,000 people may have been prevented from voting in the general election because they lacked the necessary ID, with those from minority ethnic communities more than twice as likely to have experienced this, polling has suggested.
Of those surveyed by More In Common, 3.2% said they were turned away at least once last Thursday, which if reflected across the UK would equate to more than 850,000 people. Of these, more than half said they either did not return or came back and were still unable to vote.
Among people turned away at least once, about a third had ID that was not on the relatively narrow list of permitted documents; about a quarter said the name on their ID was different to that on the electoral register; and 12% said they were told the picture on the ID did not match their appearance.
The poll of more than 2,000 people across Great Britain, coordinated by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, also indicated that the voter ID rules, used last week for the first time at a general election, disproportionately affected minority ethnic people.
It found that 6.5% of voters of colour were turned away from a polling booth at least once, compared with 2.5% of white voters.
The rule that voters must show photo ID was introduced by the Conservative government as part of its 2022 Elections Act, despite minimal evidence that in-person voter fraud was a significant problem.
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Another potential issue is people deciding not to vote, or even register to vote, because they know they lack ID. The polling found that 6% of people said the ID requirements had affected their decision on whether or not to vote and that they then did not vote, which if reflected nationally could mean up to 2.8 million people not voting when they might otherwise have done.
And you really don’t think they considered this? They knew what they were doing.
Not really. Given, student IDs are given to many foreigners. That is far more likely the reason it was excluded.
But s I say student ID and oyster cards in general are not issued by an authority the gov has control over. So as far as those fighting for it are concerned. Allowing such is freaking pointless As they are not government ID and as such the gov has no say or involvement in the process.
Elderly and disabled bus passes driving licences passports and new voter ID are ll legal requirement issued under alimentary laws. Elderly oyster cards are just the method London uses to issue elderly bus passes.
As I keep saying, voter ID is a freaking stupid idea fixing an issue that does not exist.
But adding student ID or student issued bus passes would take extra laws. IE actually taking over the rules of how uni’s, colleges and private bus companies issue those IDs. Whereas the approved IDs including elderly oyster cards are already under those laws.
As much as I would not put it past Tories to use anything to limit voters they don’t like. Forcing Uni’s colleges and private companies to follow rules on the issuance of IDs that have zero other legal value or purpose. It would likely piss more Tory funders off while costing the government a freaking fortune to implement.
I hate giving Tories credit for anything. But there are simply more logical reasons for this than the conspiracy involved.