'Democracy at threat as government's doing little to help those unable to vote'

26 March 2023 , 21:14

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A voter places a paper in the ballot box at a polling station (Image: PA)

As many as 9.4 million people across Great Britain, 17% of eligible adults and equivalent to nearly one-in-every-five of us, are missing from the electoral register or not listed at our current address so we may not be able to vote.

And what is the UK Conservative Government doing to fill this glaring, shaming hole in our diminished democracy? Little to nothing.

Is it providing extra emergency funds to local authorities to sign them all up, desperately enfranchising the disenfranchised, and modernising the law by giving officials access to other data such as council tax bills to enrol voters automatically? No.

Of course they aren’t when the 42% of private renters the Electoral Commission believes are adrift are far less likely to vote Tory than 9% absent homeowners.

Democracy is currently at danger, Kevin Maguire argues

The same applies to the 29% missing young people aged 18-34 compared with only 6% of those aged 65 and over.

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MPs on the cross-party Levelling Up Committee investigating electoral registration are buried in evidence on the mendacity of levelling down democracy.

What at the very least smacks of Tory indifference over deeply flawed electoral rolls mutates into naked self-interest when approved photo ID will be demanded at polling booths in Britain for General Elections and, from May 4, England’s council contests.

If you can’t see the poll, click here

This is a supposed answer to a phantom problem when the Electoral Commission again found no evidence of systemic fraud, the number of Tory MPs convicted of sex offences greater than a single conviction for voter fraud in recent times.

Turnout will be depressed, voters without the correct document turned away as happened in trials, and again the Tories calculate their party will gain or they wouldn’t be erecting the hurdle.

The young, poor, people of colour and disabled – all more likely to vote Labour, less likely to be Tories – will be disproportionately blocked.

It’s called gerrymandering, rigging elections in a party’s favour. The Conservatives are plotting to steal the General Election, hijacking British democracy. Unless they’re stopped. Now. Labour should be shouting from roof tops instead of occasionally expressing concern.

Kevin Maguire