Evidence of General Election Voting Fraud
Discussion
rscott said:
I was (back in my student days). Used to be some very strange voting patterns in Westminster back then...
It's quite concerning really.We already know the boundaries favour a Labour government (hopefully that will change in 2018), but if students are double voting in increasing numbers too - the whole system could be unbalanced quite significantly towards a Labour outcome.
NoIP said:
But if your plan is to vote more than once you're not going to tell them you've moved from another area are you! You tell them anything other than that, eg. just moved to the UK from x. So long as you can provide proof of who you are, or pass the electronic HMRC check then they don't care as their box ticking exercise is complete.
It doesn't rely on the elector saying that when they register, the system should pick it up through the cross-checking of the NI number. I wouldn't say there is no possibility of fraud but it wouldn't be as simple as some seem to think. I think much easier voting fraud is to use someone else's vote by coercion or deceit (e.g. voting at a different polling station using someone else's polling card).jtremlett said:
t doesn't rely on the elector saying that when they register, the system should pick it up through the cross-checking of the NI number. I wouldn't say there is no possibility of fraud but it wouldn't be as simple as some seem to think. I think much easier voting fraud is to use someone else's vote by coercion or deceit (e.g. voting at a different polling station using someone else's polling card).
As I've already said twice which you seem to have ignored, if you were registering to vote to get more than one vote, you aren't going to be doing it the 'normal' way are you? You would deliberately use a wrong NINO or some other info which can't be checked so that they ask you for your DL or PP copy to confirm your identity. They have no NINO for you on file so it would be impossible for a different ER area to check that you aren't registered in a different area because they have nothing to check you against. And please don't tell me they circulate your DL or PP details to all the other ER areas and they crosscheck the list because that simply would not happen. Council employees can barely manage to dress themselves in the morning so there's no chance of them being able to do something complicated like that.Oakey said:
When I googled this yesterday it seems that students can be both registered to vote in their home town and the town they reside as a student at the same time. It's as simple as that and there's little to stop them voting twice other than it being illegal and the possibility of a £5000 fine.
Wouldn't most students live a fair distance away? How many (apart from a few momentum nutters) would actually vote one place and the travel (probably by public transport so a longer trip) to home town?Unless it was one of those few constituencies where it came down to 30 votes, would it even matter?
NoIP said:
As I've already said twice which you seem to have ignored, if you were registering to vote to get more than one vote, you aren't going to be doing it the 'normal' way are you? You would deliberately use a wrong NINO or some other info which can't be checked so that they ask you for your DL or PP copy to confirm your identity. They have no NINO for you on file so it would be impossible for a different ER area to check that you aren't registered in a different area because they have nothing to check you against. And please don't tell me they circulate your DL or PP details to all the other ER areas and they crosscheck the list because that simply would not happen. Council employees can barely manage to dress themselves in the morning so there's no chance of them being able to do something complicated like that.
Ok. I think it is theoretically possible to be registered at different addresses in different electoral areas whilst not giving your NI number for one or both areas but I also think that would be quite a hard way to defraud the system compared to voting using someone else's polling card. In my view it is true that the changes to the electoral registration system a couple of years ago did not make any significant difference with regards to potential fraud.hyphen said:
Wouldn't most students live a fair distance away? How many (apart from a few momentum nutters) would actually vote one place and the travel (probably by public transport so a longer trip) to home town?
Unless it was one of those few constituencies where it came down to 30 votes, would it even matter?
Could you perhaps register to vote at home via a postal vote, and then vote in your town of current residence in person? That would make things a lot easier.Unless it was one of those few constituencies where it came down to 30 votes, would it even matter?
As to how many have actually done so... who knows?
hyphen said:
Oakey said:
When I googled this yesterday it seems that students can be both registered to vote in their home town and the town they reside as a student at the same time. It's as simple as that and there's little to stop them voting twice other than it being illegal and the possibility of a £5000 fine.
Wouldn't most students live a fair distance away? How many (apart from a few momentum nutters) would actually vote one place and the travel (probably by public transport so a longer trip) to home town?Unless it was one of those few constituencies where it came down to 30 votes, would it even matter?
This is a non-issue. The numbers involved will be small in the overall scheme of things.
It's just a reaction to the 'Tory Election Fraud' accusations thrown into the GE campaign by Momentum, this time an opposing accusation thrown into the coroners enquiry.
Spending a little more on campaigning or a handful or double-voting student, neither makes any real difference to the final result.
It's just a reaction to the 'Tory Election Fraud' accusations thrown into the GE campaign by Momentum, this time an opposing accusation thrown into the coroners enquiry.
Spending a little more on campaigning or a handful or double-voting student, neither makes any real difference to the final result.
jtremlett said:
NoIP said:
As I've already said twice which you seem to have ignored, if you were registering to vote to get more than one vote, you aren't going to be doing it the 'normal' way are you? You would deliberately use a wrong NINO or some other info which can't be checked so that they ask you for your DL or PP copy to confirm your identity. They have no NINO for you on file so it would be impossible for a different ER area to check that you aren't registered in a different area because they have nothing to check you against. And please don't tell me they circulate your DL or PP details to all the other ER areas and they crosscheck the list because that simply would not happen. Council employees can barely manage to dress themselves in the morning so there's no chance of them being able to do something complicated like that.
Ok. I think it is theoretically possible to be registered at different addresses in different electoral areas whilst not giving your NI number for one or both areas but I also think that would be quite a hard way to defraud the system compared to voting using someone else's polling card. In my view it is true that the changes to the electoral registration system a couple of years ago did not make any significant difference with regards to potential fraud.The Surveyor said:
This is a non-issue. The numbers involved will be small in the overall scheme of things.
I wouldn't be so sure. Most universities in the UK have between 10,000 and 40,000 students - with many towns/cities having more than one university. It wouldn't take a large percentage of the student population to double vote to have significant impact on the result.I tabulated the data from the link I posted earlier to show all of the seats Labour won from other parties (colour coded appropriately) with less than 2% difference in vote share.
12 seats had fewer than 500 votes between Labour and the second place party (8 of those are former Tory seats).
Whether all of these constituencies have large students populations is another matter - just at a glance, some definitely do (like Glasgow, Newcastle, Canterbury etc)
It is estimated that Canterbury has around 40,000 students. Labour won that seat by 170 votes. Just 0.43% of the student population double voting on Labour could have swung it.
Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 13th June 10:55
The Surveyor said:
This is a non-issue. The numbers involved will be small in the overall scheme of things.
It's just a reaction to the 'Tory Election Fraud' accusations thrown into the GE campaign by Momentum, this time an opposing accusation thrown into the coroners enquiry.
Spending a little more on campaigning or a handful or double-voting student, neither makes any real difference to the final result.
Seeing that one party won in one constituency by 2 votes, it doesn't matter how small the numbers are, they can make a difference.It's just a reaction to the 'Tory Election Fraud' accusations thrown into the GE campaign by Momentum, this time an opposing accusation thrown into the coroners enquiry.
Spending a little more on campaigning or a handful or double-voting student, neither makes any real difference to the final result.
Moonhawk said:
The Surveyor said:
This is a non-issue. The numbers involved will be small in the overall scheme of things.
I wouldn't be so sure. Most universities in the UK have between 10,000 and 40,000 students - with many towns/cities having more than one university. It wouldn't take a large percentage of the student population to double vote to have significant impact on the result.I tabulated the data from the link I posted earlier to show all of the seats Labour won from other parties (colour coded appropriately) with less than 2% difference in vote share.
12 seats had fewer than 500 votes between Labour and the second place party (8 of those are former Tory seats).
Whether all of these constituencies have large students populations is another matter - just at a glance, some definitely do (like Glasgow, Newcastle, Canterbury etc)
Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 13th June 10:50
Another flaw in this argument could be Colchester - that's got a much bigger university with 13,000 students, yet still voted in a Conservative candidate. That's despite the Chancellor of Essex University being Shami Chakrabarti.
rscott said:
Ipswich is a pretty poor example - one university with 5,000 students. The constituency was Tory for the last couple of elections, but before that has mainly been Labour anyway.
Another flaw in this argument could be Colchester - that's got a much bigger university with 13,000 students, yet still voted in a Conservative candidate. That's despite the Chancellor of Essex University being Shami Chakrabarti.
I didn't pick them as examples of high student population constituencies - I just tabulated all constituencies that had 2% or less difference between Labour and the 2nd place party.Another flaw in this argument could be Colchester - that's got a much bigger university with 13,000 students, yet still voted in a Conservative candidate. That's despite the Chancellor of Essex University being Shami Chakrabarti.
Some will have high student numbers (like Canterbury) - some will not (like Ipswich).
There are bound to be some constituencies on the list that get taken by a small margin - just because it works out that way. It could be all of them - who knows.
Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 13th June 11:29
Another thing the table above shows.
It was much vaunted that Corbyn only needed a couple of thousand more votes and he could have been PM. I guess this is assuming all of those votes were conveniently cast in tight marginal seats.
But the Conservatives only needed around half that amount (1257 votes) to get a majority - again assuming the votes had been cast in the constituencies where Labour won by the tightest margins.
It was much vaunted that Corbyn only needed a couple of thousand more votes and he could have been PM. I guess this is assuming all of those votes were conveniently cast in tight marginal seats.
But the Conservatives only needed around half that amount (1257 votes) to get a majority - again assuming the votes had been cast in the constituencies where Labour won by the tightest margins.
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