It was quite funny on Election Day the other week.
my friend and his partner had to isolate as they woke up on the day with covid symptoms. They arranged for me to be their emergency proxy.
He whatsapped me a screenshot of an email saying I had been confirmed as the emergency proxy, to go to their polling station and advise the staff. The email said the staff would phone the returning officer on their dedicated number and they’d check my photo ID. I did this and no one knew what to do. Was passed from person to person before being sent to the desk for his address.
Once there, I again explained I was an emergency proxy for two people and confirmed their name. I was then given two ballot papers. One of the two men at the desk asked the other what would happen if the two people I was a proxy for came in, he replied “they’d just be told they had already voted”.
No one checked, beyond a cursory glance of the screenshot of an email, that I was an official proxy. No one checked my ID. It was so mild blowingly lax that I believe electoral fraud would be incredibly easy to pull off, especially in marginal seat, if you could find the willing participants.
Whilst this was one polling station it seems that they are incapable of following the process already, so I imagine trying to implement ID checking will cripple the system, lead to huge waiting times, confusion, and will disenfranchise people. It’s trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. We should be making it easier to vote, not harder. Whilst ensuring the processes that are in place now are followed.
