UK Readers to the Rescue

~ Clarissa

Is it true that there is something called “postal voting” in the UK that deprives large groups of people of the right to vote?

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Published by Clarissa

19 thoughts on “UK Readers to the Rescue”

  1. There is such a thing as “postal voting” as well as “proxy voting”, the latter involving cases where you can’t reasonably be expected to show up at a polling place.

    Some may be caught out by the fact that proxy votes rely on a “signature refresh” — the specifics on how that’s handled vary slightly between councils. Others may be caught out by the fact that they’ve allowed their postal voting registration to lapse, which I would suspect is the primary reason behind being shut out of an election.

    Otherwise, I don’t know about “large” groups …

    Besides, I prefer to buy my politicians anyway. 🙂

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    2. I have in Arizona, USA and our current mid-term elections (election day is 4 November) REQUIRE voting by mail. You can’t go to the polling HQ and vote in person even if you’d like to. The ballots are secret, but you have to put your signature on the outside of the mailing envelope (no identification on the ballot itself).

      I personally like this system. It’s very convenient and quick — the idea that I could vote for my wife is far-fetched, unless I filled out her ballot for her, and then FORCED her to put her signature on the outside of the envelope.

      I doubt that this abusive voting practice is widespread, in the UK or anywhere else.

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      1. “It’s very convenient and quick — the idea that I could vote for my wife is far-fetched, unless I filled out her ballot for her, and then FORCED her to put her signature on the outside of the envelope.”

        – I’m sure you personally would not do it. I personally would not do it either. But there is a whole wide world outside of our personal experiences. You and I are not abusive but many people are. It is extremely easy to exercise pressure simply by standing over somebody’s shoulder while they vote if the environment in the family is conducive to this sort of thing.

        I have to repeat my question: are people not aware of the history of the suffrage movement in Western countries and of the massive efforts made to ensure that women could stay alone for 15 seconds at the voting booth without their husbands or fathers hovering next to them?

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  2. Anyone on the British electoral roll can fill in a form to ask to have a voting form posted to them so they can vote and post the form back, there will be a cut off date for each election for this. There are obviously potential problems with this, some of which are increasing as shown during the recent Scottish referendum. Consultations are taking place currently about some, but not all, of those possible problems, but there is a big political divide between those who are delighted that so many people in Scotland signed onto the electoral roll and also voted, and wish this to continue, and those who don’t want the populace to vote in large numbers in case they get big ideas about who actually runs the country.

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      1. Why should it deprive women of the right to vote? The system is there to allow people to exercixe their right to vote when they might otherwise be unable to do so — for example if they know they will be away on election day.

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        1. “Why should it deprive women of the right to vote?”

          – It is very easy for a controlling husband or father to vote instead of the wife or adult children or to control their voting. The only vote acceptable in a democratic society is the anonymous, secret one. The ballot should be secret in order to function. If you have the people who provide your food and control your life standing next to you while you vote, that’s hardly the kind of voting we consider democratic.

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        2. “The system is there to allow people to exercixe their right to vote when they might otherwise be unable to do so — for example if they know they will be away on election day.”

          – There is a system of early voting for those cases.

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      2. Postal voting IS early voting, or it was when I last used it. The only time I used it was when my wife and I moved 200 km away from the constituencey wshere we were formerly living. Rather than drive all the way up there, we got a postal vote. If we did not have a postal vote, we would not have voted. The postal vote diod not deprivde us of the right to vote, it ensured that we were able to exercise that right. I did not vote for my wife, we each voted for ourselves. Postal votes had to be in several days before election day, and were delivbered by registered post to the electoral officer in the constuency concerned, and then counted, and added to the total on voting day itself. But IT DID NMOT DEPRIVE US OF THE RIGHT TO VOTE.

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        1. “I did not vote for my wife, we each voted for ourselves. Postal votes had to be in several days before election day, and were delivbered by registered post to the electoral officer in the constuency concerned, and then counted, and added to the total on voting day itself. But IT DID NMOT DEPRIVE US OF THE RIGHT TO VOTE.”

          – GOOD FOR YOU. But there are people other than you on the planet. And if you don’t vote for your wife, it doesn’t mean nobody on the planet does.

          Are people not at all aware of the fight for female suffrage on Western countries??

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          1. “Electioneering in the London borough of Tower Hamlets has descended once more into bitter allegations of widespread postal fraud and vote harvesting.

            Labour and Conservative councillors have both written to the Electoral Commission detailing instances where they believe postal fraud may have occurred. Residents in one block of flats in the area have also separately complained that volunteers have been knocking on their doors asking to post their votes on their behalf – something which is illegal under election rules.”

            http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/widespread-allegations-of-electoral-fraud-in-tower-hamlets-7682075.html

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            1. Postal voting is open to fraud on an “industrial scale” and is “unviable” in its current form, a top judge has said.

              Richard Mawrey QC, who tries cases of electoral fraud, told the BBC that people should not be able to apply for postal votes as a matter of course.

              “On demand” postal voting had not boosted turnout or simplified the process for the vulnerable, he said.

              http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26520836

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              1. A senior judge made a scathing attack on the postal voting system yesterday, condemning the government for complacency in the face of fraud which would disgrace a “banana republic”.
                Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over a special election court in Birmingham, warned that there were no realistic systems in place to detect or prevent postal voting fraud at the general election. “Until there are, fraud will continue unabated,” he said.

                He found six Labour councillors in Birmingham guilty of carrying out “massive, systematic and organised” postal voting fraud to win two wards during last June’s elections for the city council. Declaring the results void, he barred the men from standing again in a byelection expected on May 12.

                http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment

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      3. Yes, postal voting has always been open to fraud and abuse, like other aspects of voting. But that is not the fault or intention of the postal voting system, the problem, is the abuse of the system.

        And it seems that in the US, in particular, attempts to correct such abuses are seen as attempts to deprive people of the right to vote — witness controversies about voter ID. Does the US really allow people vote without identifying themselves?

        Isn’t it depriving people of the right to vote when they turn up to vote and discover that someone has impersonated them and already voted in their name?

        I suppose they follow the slogan, “vote early, vote often”.

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      4. “It is very easy for a controlling husband …”

        It would also be very easy for a controlling wife, or in the case of adult children, a controlling mother …

        I would not be so quick to assign gender in this situation — I’m more interested in how you’d solve the problems, given that people actually like postal voting.

        Of course, if they can’t afford to buy their politicians outright, they would! 🙂

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        1. “It would also be very easy for a controlling wife, or in the case of adult children, a controlling mother …
          I would not be so quick to assign gender in this situation — I’m more interested in how you’d solve the problems, given that people actually like postal voting.”

          – Of course, I agree completely. There are also people who dominate with their presence without even wanting to do that. For instance, it takes a very strong personality to vote for somebody I dislike while I’m there, watching the process. I tend to be overwhelming on issues concerning politics.

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  3. There is also postal voting in other European countries, e.g. if you are not in your place of residence on election day and can’t vote, you can apply for postal vote or else if you are abroad, you can apply to vote on the nearest embassy of your country.

    I don’t know about large groups being cut out of voting, but in fact i used postal voting a few times, including here in UK, for convenience, i.e. if I was away on election day.

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