Postal Voting and Fraud

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I received my postal vote the other day for the post of police crime commissioner. I'm not sure why such a role exists, beyond creating a job for somebody, since enforcing the law doesn't seem a particularly political matter. Besides which, the only options were Uniparty Blue, Red and Yellow so... no difference at all then in policy terms.

I don't actually know why I'm registered for postal voting. Must be a hangover from when I moved about a lot for work. I would actually prefer to go to a polling station as that feels more like fulfilling my civic duty, so will change things soon. I've also found out a few things about postal voting recently, which has given me pause for thought...

- it is prone to electoral fraud
- it is banned in other countries, like France, for this reason
- numerous politicians have been convicted of electoral fraud in this country; all Labour and from a particular demographic

The government has, sensibly, established a requirement that voters take ID with them to polling stations to prevent fraud. But no such restriction applies to postal voting. Literally anybody in my home could've cast my vote by post. If I were a patriarchal, medieval sort who doesn't think women should have opinions, I could commandeer all of the postal votes sent to my home for various family members, run it by my local religious leader, and then vote accordingly - as part of a monopolised bloc. This is, in fact, how voting does work in many countries that are corrupt and where people think it is normal to cheat the system.

In Rochdale recently, a whopping 50% of the votes were cast by post. Are 50% of the voters too disabled or elderly to walk to a nearby polling station? An extremist candidate won that election in the end - and one who had aimed his campaign in a particular direction. In London, it is more or less a certainty that Khan will benefit from postal voting, just as the bent mayor of Tower Hamlets (previously convicted for electoral fraud) does.

So, given that postal voting is vulnerable to fraud, largely unnecessary, shunned in other countries... why are we seeing such a high rate of it? I can see why the Labour party will have perceived it to be to their advantage previously when they were desperate for votes, and formed certain alliances for this reason. But Rochdale shows that this can change quickly and dramatically when they displease the vote harvesters. No doubt the Tories perceive advantage for themselves, perhaps from elderly voters. Point is, it shouldn't make any difference whether it does or does not benefit these parties - preventing electoral fraud and the resultant corruption of our democracy should be the chief consideration.

No doubt the Equalities Act and other such idiotic and corrosive legislation make it near impossible to achieve any good sense in this, but I would at least expect to have seen more made of this. No doubt a difficult subject to broach because of the specific community that's likely to end up in the conversation, but this is dangerous and wrong.

What do others think? As we are living in an increasingly low-trust society, do we need to return to good old fashioned ways like queuing up and putting our votes into the black boxes ourselves?
 
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Khant was strongly opposed to scrapping postal vote.
Could it be because part of his supporters fill the polling cards from studio flats "inhabited" by 40/50 of them?
Who's checking that they really live there?
Postal vote should be only for people who are unable to go to a polling station and the vote should be cast only after an official has identified the voter.
Costly?
Well, with all the money politicians throw away, I'd be happy to see my tax go on this.
Besides, how many voters are unable to get to a polling station???
 
screams of voter fraud always seem to come from the right
ironic considering the Conservative non stop efforts in giving themselves an advantage with boundary change, pork barrel politics, and voter ID
 
A vaguely related question. Should the boundary of a parliamentary seat be based on the total number of people living in it. Or on the number of adults who are eligible to vote. Or simply on the number of registered voters.
 
A vaguely related question. Should the boundary of a parliamentary seat be based on the total number of people living in it. Or on the number of adults who are eligible to vote. Or simply on the number of registered voters.
General elections should be done by proportional representation...

The only other European country that doesn't have some form of PR is Belarus!

I'd also suggest that party politics should be taken out of local elections, and the political post of PCC should be removed!
 
General elections should be done by proportional representation...

The only other European country that doesn't have some form of PR is Belarus!

I'd also suggest that party politics should be taken out of local elections, and the political post of PCC should be removed!

PR doesn't really help. It just creates a world of shady backroom dealing and the formation of coalitions that don't necessarily deliver on any election promises. At the last German general election, it took several months before the electorate found out who would govern them.

More direct democracy is arguably a good thing so that we, personally as citizens, get to vote directly on particular laws and constitutional reforms. Obviously a more pure form of democracy than the representative style and functions very well in Switzerland.

There is arguably a problem with political parties in that they co-opt the representation into a broad, self serving umbrella and are a form of centralisation that can easily be captured by vested interests. It might be preferable to bin parties and we just vote for individuals. This is technically how it does work, but parties have effectively hijacked the process.
 
PR doesn't really help. It just creates a world of shady backroom dealing and the formation of coalitions that don't necessarily deliver on any election promises. At the last German general election, it took several months before the electorate found out who would govern them.

More direct democracy is arguably a good thing so that we, personally as citizens, get to vote directly on particular laws and constitutional reforms. Obviously a more pure form of democracy than the representative style and functions very well in Switzerland.

There is arguably a problem with political parties in that they co-opt the representation into a broad, self serving umbrella and are a form of centralisation that can easily be captured by vested interests. It might be preferable to bin parties and we just vote for individuals. This is technically how it does work, but parties have effectively hijacked the process.
You must consider yourself an average person. You might even consider yourself above average (your posts don't show that).

It's obvious that the average person isnt well informed enough to partake in referendums to run the country. Those below average certainly aren't.

Our electoral system has lots of faults but I'd hate to see it get worse.

Some form of PR is the only way forward if you want to get away from extreme tribal politics. Differing parties and views having to sort out agreed political paths is much better than the tribal, or referendum systems
 
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A vaguely related question. Should the boundary of a parliamentary seat be based on the total number of people living in it. Or on the number of adults who are eligible to vote. Or simply on the number of registered voters.

Constituencies are decided by the number of people in it eligible to vote

IIRC it’s around 76000 which is a huge improvement from over a decade ago
 
Constituencies are decided by the number of people in it eligible to vote

Does that mean the number of people who are actually on the electoral register?

Or the number people who are entitled to go on the electoral register?
 
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