A letter to the Sheffield Star
“I took a neighbour of mine to her polling station on election day. She was prevented from voting because she couldn’t find her passport. She has no driving licence. Her electronic pass with a photo as a worker in the NHS was deemed not permissible. I was able to vote because I had an older person’s travel pass.
In many places a student at a UK university or college who is eligible to vote, their student ID card despite it having a photo ID is invalid. A young person’s rail card is not acceptable.
The Electoral Commission reports that: “In the past 5 years, there is no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud. Of the 1,462 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2019 and 2023, 10 led to convictions and the police issued 4 cautions.” The Commission estimates that 8 million people are missing from the electoral roll which disproportionally affects private renters, young, Asian and black people. We need UK-wide automatic voter registration and the system we have should be repealed.
There is much bigger electoral fraud happening.
Lack of Proportional Representation is one.
No limit on the amount of money given to the bigger political parties to run their election machines is another.
The fact is our electoral system is unfair, runs in an ad-hoc way and is grossly unfair.
The UK is dangerously close to becoming like the repressive state of Belarus which like the UK uses a ‘First Past The Post’ voting system
We do not live in a democracy and this needs to change with great urgency.
Retired Cllr for Walkley and Upperthorpe.
Bernard Little
