ID Cards should be used to prevent voting fraud
The Electoral Commission has called for reforms to the way ballot boxes are run in the UK in order to combat voting fraud. Apparently the voting system has seen little or no change in the way that it operates in the UK since the nineteenth century.
According to the Electoral Commission, voters should have to use photo ID cards to protect against voting fraud. They also stated that measures needed to be taken to restore the shattered public confidence in the voting system. One of the measures suggested was to have individual voter registration, as currently voter registration just goes on the head of the household.
Photo identification, such as the new government national identity cards, is one such way that voters would be able to confirm their identity at the polling stations. Northern Ireland already has a photo ID system in place at the ballet box, and the Electoral Commission suggested that it could work in the UK in conjunction with other types of ID, such as birth certificates or passports.
A new report has just been issued, titled “Electoral Administration In The UK”, which highlights all of the commission’s recommendations.
Eleanor Laing, the shadow justice minister, stated:
Individual electoral registration and accurate electoral registers are essential for a free and fair democratic process.
Gimmicks like weekend voting are pointless if the very foundations of our democracy are being called into question.
