(no subject)

[djm4_lj]

The UK follows the US's lead in making voting fraud easier. Or one more reason why I won't be voting Labour, no matter how scared I am of a Michael Howard government (*). It's not the fact that the fraud was perpetrated by Labour in this case - as the article rightly points out, "other experts say the fraud is not confined to particular communities, or to Birmingham, or to the Labour Party" - it's the fact that it was Labour who brought in the rules to allow more people to vote by post, without any of the safeguards that such a move needs.

My freedom is not safe in the hands of these people.

Edit: (*) for the record, I'll be voting Lib Dem unless something very unexpected happens between now and then. But I'm expecting the 'anyone but Michael Howard' campaign to do a similar thing to the 'anyone but Bush' one in the US, and try to persuade people that voting for any aprty other than Labour is effectively a vote for the Tories. Which may have some validity, but tough.

Comments

[vampwillow]

oh we (LD) definitely do want to retain the secret ballot (and so do the ERS which has rather a large number of LDs in, including many of current ctte) but it is a difficult path to tread as many people now seem to feel that going along to use a voting booth - which is open for 14 hours - is too much like hard work or 'a bother' so a method of getting people re-involved is still needed until people realise that the verify-and-trace-ability of the paper chase that is litle bits of paper marked with a pencil in private with no-one looking over your shoulder is the best and most secure way of casting your ballot.

We are also still for bringing in electoral reform asap too ...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

*grin* So you're saying that restricting postal votes to ensure a secret ballot is the Right Thing to do, but because it won't be popular and will reduce turnout, you're not calling for it to be done?

[vampwillow]

indeed. I'm a would-be politician!

seriously though, many people are bored by and anti the whole "democracy" thing and think it makes no difference (even though it eriously does). Arguably, it is local elections not national elections that make most difference to us as individuals, but that gets even fewer people motivated.

I've had a permanent postal vote for nearly 16 years, originally because of work taking me away from home at short notice. To my mind, "I can't be bothered to go to the polling booth in my sub-ward" should not be a valid reason for a postal vote.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

God almighty. We really do get the government we deserve.

I've lived in a different place for every general election in which I've been eligible to vote. On all occasions, the polling booth has been within half a mile (and in one case within a hundred yards), open well before it's time to go to work, and well after I've got home, and there have never been any significant queues.

It really is not difficult to vote.

My mind boggles that people can be so f*cking lazy, so f*cking ungrateful that they have the right to vote, and so f*cking selfish that they don't exercise the *duty* that goes with that right.

Arseholes, the lot of them.


J