Electoral Issues

Anecdotes about the behaviour of political party members and activists on and before an election's polling day can be helpful in showing where the problems with our democratic practices lie. Indeed, I have written about a few of my own experiences here and in other places.

This one, though, is particularly informative, as are the comments that follow it.

It concerns a part of Birmingham that has had similar issues before, and came to media attention at the time. I have been watching such things for several years now, and am certainly alert for anything untoward in my own area. Fortunately we have relatively little "bad stuff" going on here, though there is some (never by my party, though).

It is important that we are all aware of the flaws in how our electoral system operates, so that we can bring pressure to bear on tightening up procedures in our own area as well as pushing for nationwide changes (i.e. the laws and regulations) to deal with obvious problems such as those caused by making postal votes available to all.

What has always surprised me, on that broad topic, is the lack of need to provide any kind of identification at the Polling Station. What is the justification for that laxity, especially when it is known that "personation" is a long-standing problem in elections in this country.

THere are all sorts of matters raised in the linked article at Guy the Mac (of whom I hadn't heard before today) and I recommend it to anyone interested in this subject. I have taken a copy for my permanent reference files.