Eighthours wrote:If the options are available to get ID for free or inexpensively (which would also assist people in the rest of their lives), then I don't think it will dissuade anyone who was already going to vote.
Inexpensive is a very subjective term. To you £5/£10/£50/£80 might not be a lot, to other people it might be the difference between feeding their kids that week.
There is absolutely no way that voter ID would be introduced for free either.
And it will dissuade people from voting. Plenty of people will not be able to find their ID on the morning they go to vote, or will turn up at the polling station with no ID on them.
If you're talking about currently politically unengaged people who weren't going to vote anyway, then there is no gain or loss from asking for ID. The issue with these people is how to engage them with politics, something which is well beyond this debate. If you can get them engaged, then the ID requirement wouldn't dissuade them either, as long as the ID is easy and cheap to obtain.
You were talking about poor and politically unengaged people (which you also seem to think is the same thing), we were just talking about the poor.
There is a loss from asking for ID, if it stops people bothering to vote.
Is your problem with the idea the principle of requiring ID, or the current cost of ID?
Both. I was against the idea of a national ID card when Labour tried to introduce it. I am also against any measures that would prevent anybody from being able to vote.
Let's be honest, the Conservatives are bringing this in because they think it'll lose the opposition votes, just as Labour want votes at 16 because they think that younger people are more likely to vote for them. But neither situation is necessarily true.
Both those situations are true. Stopping poor people voting will help the Conservatives in the long run, more young people voting will help Labour.
There is a big difference between the two though. One option will stop people voting, the other option will make more people vote. Which of those is more damaging to a democracy?