Green campaigner Rachel Rodwell was shocked to hear that the council do not intend to make public the number of people who are refused a vote due to a lack of ID in the local elections. The refusal came to light at the Council meeting on 22nd February where she asked what measures were to be put into place to record the impact of voter ID.
Nationally, around 4% of voters don’t have suitable ID which suggests that over 5,000 across the Borough of Maidstone need to apply for voter ID yet only around 100 people have so far.
Rachel Rodwell (Green Party campaigner for Allington): “Voter ID will potentially disenfranchise millions of voters across the country and yet the level of voter fraud is miniscule.
“I can’t believe that this is being introduced without basic safeguards and transparency particularly as the impacts are potentially huge and damaging for democracy.
“I will continue to press for the data after the election as the public really do need to understand the level of damage being wreaked on our already antiquated electoral system.”
Notes:
Rachel’s question to the Council:
Given that currently, 2 million people do not possess the required voter ID for participation in May’s local elections and last month, it was recorded that only 10,000 people had used the central government portal to apply for the Voter Authority Certificate, concern is growing that large numbers of people (many from disadvantaged groups), are still unaware of the changes to the voting requirements, despite the Electoral Commission’s pledge to push ahead with an information campaign.
In view of the above figures, we now have the worrying prospect of many of our own disadvantaged residents, being denied the opportunity to vote on Polling Day. Will Maidstone Borough Council, therefore, ask officers at the polling stations, to record the number of people, being turned away and also to make their findings public, in the interests of transparency?
There are 47 million registered voters in the UK. 2 million are estimated to not have suitable ID, i.e.4%. There are 130,000 registered voters in the Borough of Maidstone, 4% equates to around 5200 people.
