Residents in Tower Hamlets know only too well electoral fraud can swing an election, any tightening-up of the rules is greatly welcomed. They should also return to the old system of only allowing postal votes in exceptional circumstances.

So who can vote will be determined by local councils - that will make things wonderfully unbiased won't it.

Utility bills come with one name on them - usually the head of household. They can't be used to identify anyone else. Anyone who really wants to vote 10 times , will just put different names on the bills and electoral register The only defence will be what it is now -someone spotting that Tim, Thomas and Tony Brown all look the same person.

You can only check voters with an externally provided secure id, and then block voting with it in different polling stations or constituencies, by recording that its been used to vote. That demands recording the id's own reference number - like the passport number, and linking polling stations so that its known who has voted anywhere else.

That means everone needs an ID card ,and there's another recorded link between who voted and what they voted.

Wouldn't make any difference. You could just take the same ID to the other constituency. The syetem doesn't know you voted twice - unless it can record some feature of the Id thats unique - like a passport number , NHS number or licence number.

If you live in 2 places you can be registered for two. You just can't vote twice. Its never been a problem that a people do vote twice. It sbeen like thsi for decades if not centuries.

And if you want to remove the possibility, you have to be able to know that a vote has been placed in two places that connects to one piece of ID - which rules out utility bills as an identifier -as people will have multiple ones .

You only get a mistake if you forget to notify the electoral people when you leave a constituency for good, or they fail to act on it.

The bit I have put in bold is a big difference between what Northern Ireland does and what the government is proposing. There has been no mention of the government providing free photo ID to enable people to vote at polling stations.

Do they, or are you just guessing?

It would soon be useless anyway as in certain events such as muslim women who wear the veil having to take it off in front of a male who is not of family so you need special arrangements to be made and you need then at least one female poll clerk for every station etc.

Finger prints probably would work and not need updating every 10 years or so but the government and its spooks would love to have a photo / fingerprint and retinal scan available. The fact that it would need a joined up national database of everyone stored centrally as well would be a spooks wet dream requiring a weeks worth of kleenex's production shall we say.

What is a "Benefits Agency ID card"? You seem to be the only person who thinks it exists.

I spent a number of years unemployed and never received a "Benefits ID Card" in fact I had never even heard of such a thing until now.

I suspect the only people who have an ID card from the Benefits Agency are the people who work for them.

Maybe Annsyre was thinking of DWP benefits simple payment card issued to people who have no bank account.
https://www.gov.uk/simple-payment
But as to use it you need to also provide proof of ID maybe not.

Benefit agency ID card? What is one of these as i dont ever remember hearing about or ever seeing one.

Most companies issue photo ID, plus there are Driving licenses, passports etc

Let's be honest - Most of the electoral fraud has been perpertrated in areas where unscrupulous individuals have used their religion and oppression of family members to give themselves multiple votes.
This stops that dead.

If you want to live in our Democracy you obey our rules.

If the rest of the UK decides that electoral ID is needed - then the minority should just get on with it, or lose their voting rights.

Company photo ID won't be acceptable, can't imagine how you would think that.

Producing ID at the polling station does not stop postal ballot fraud, nor does it stop unscrupulous individuals have used their religion and oppression of family members to give themselves multiple votes.

How exactly does producing ID mean that someone is voting of their own free will?

It's tick box politics - oh there's a problem, here's a solution, tick. Doesn't matter if the problem is real or if the solution doesn't even address the alleged problems

Yep, I already think our voting system is a waste of space and need modernising and my vote means very little, so if I have to muck around with finding documents, I just would not bother.

Anything to discourage people from voting.

More and more companies require applicants to have full driving licences to apply for work and some organisations won't accept provisional driving licences as ID despite it being as valid! Minimising the forms of ID accepted will speed things up when people are queuing to vote, and disenfranchising poorer voters from voting who can't afford such ID will be an "unintended" benefit for the Conservatives.

I'll wager it'll be passport and full driving licences. They're the two forms of ID that the vast majority of people will have - the majority of people drive, most use them for purchasing age restricted items and many people go on holiday. Company ID will certainly not be accepted. Nor will PASS accredited ID.

i had a postal vote for when i was ill and dragging myself down to the polling station would have been difficult if not impossible, I meant to cancel now that I am capable of walking to the polling staion, but have not got around to it yet

You can never stop such fraud really, identical twins where one votes twice they can just swap clothes and return to the polling station with the other persons driving license etc.

Perhaps a basic ID card could be of use, not good enough to drive a car or go abroad but enough to be able to be used for voting and other basic ID tasks and would be of interest to kids to be able to prove their age for buying stuff thats restricted etc.

The US dept of motor vehicles also does ID's for people who cannot or don't fancy a driving license so it makes sense in a way for one government body either the dvla or passport agency to take the lead as they're the main current ID users and whats accepted as proof everywhere anyway.

Councils could do the donkey work and then the agency could issue you a nice photo ID and job done.

The only problem is that a lot of polling stations don't have any form of network access so verifying could be a bit of a pain.

i don't have a driving licence or passport and I am not over 70 or a tory voter, ok i do have a driving licence but it is an old paper one and I am not sure where that is, only for motorbikes.

We have that. PASS accredited ID. Some places don't recognise them as valid ID, alongside provisional driving licences and I suspect the same will happen with any forthcoming voting ID requirement.

I doubt it would be those two options as there are quite a number of people who don't have either a passport or a driving licence, including I'd wager quite a significant proportion of older voters.

I only have an old paper licence as I have lived at the same address for 26 years and have never had to update it.

I don't have a passport either for the very simple reason that I don't go abroad.

To buy booze you need ID if you look younger - and we don't hear people moaning about rifling through drawers to be able to buy a six-pack

Although some Supermarkets now only accept UK passports now as ID for booze purchases

If there was a new photo ID that was needed to be able to buy booze there would be a queue a mile long to sign up !!

How much would this "donkey work" cost? It looks like you are looking for an expensive solution to a problem which really doesn't exist

This change is pointless however when you still have the potential for massive abuse of postal votes.

If you have voter ID at a polling station that only deals with perhaps the two thirds of votes cast on the day. Not the third done by post where no photo ID is required.

As long as you know the date of birth and can forge a signature anyone can apply for a postal vote in someone else's name and get the form and ballot paper redirected to another address or just take the envelope. Let alone the scope for people - often women - to be pressurised to vote a certain way as its not a secret ballot. That was the issue in Tower Hamlets - multiple people registered at small flats having bulk postal votes.

Photo ID fine - but let's sort out the real area of abuse first which are postal votes?