Voter ID Pilot Schemes
Debate between Jonathan Lord and Tommy Sheppard(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
We have a real problem in this country with democratic participation and engagement. At the last general election, 14.6 million people who were registered and entitled to vote did not do so. In all parts of the country, at every local election we do not have a majority of those who are entitled to vote taking part in the election. In other words, our democracy hangs by these very shoogly nails, and we all ought to be extremely concerned about the situation. It therefore bewilders me that in the midst of all the things we need to do, the Government are committing so much concern and energy to this particular issue, which as far I can see has not been demonstrated to be a problem at all.
As others have said, we are talking about 28 alleged cases of personation last year—one case for every 1.6 million people who voted.
Tommy Sheppard
I am afraid I do not have time.
That seems to be a problem so marginal as not to require Government attention. We also know that the public are not concerned: a survey released today by the Electoral Reform Society showed electoral fraud at the very bottom of a list of potential concerns the public have about the voting system