Ben Bradley
Main Page: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)Department Debates - View all Ben Bradley's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 years ago)
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Chloe Smith
People voting twice is not what this policy is about. I wish that the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) on the Front Bench knew their policies better.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
We have heard countless stories about voter fraud in 2017, so does my hon. Friend agree that, far from showing the issue to be small scale, as Opposition Members seem to be suggesting, the fact that there has been only one conviction shows just how difficult it is to enforce a law when there is no identification requirement at polling stations?
Chloe Smith
It is right to make that broader point. We want a democracy in which everybody can have confidence. Voting twice in one election is absolutely illegal. It is, indeed, an example of an electoral crime; there are other examples as well, including bribery and impersonation. We need to make sure that everybody can have confidence in their system and, crucially, that those who would be victims of such a crime are protected from it. The idea that we should simply allow a crime to happen until it reaches a certain level is ludicrous.