The Right’s Invisible Rule: Voter Suppression from the US to the UK

The UK government has always been quick to learn from US-style tactics of voter suppression, trialling plans to require photo ID from voters in the local elections of 2018 and 2019. Even before that, the British Labour Party introduced a national identity card scheme in 2006, which although was scrapped by a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government after the 2010 general election, had already cost public pockets £4.6 million. 

While citizens of many mainland European countries have mandatory national ID cards for either low or free cost - like Germany, in which the ‘Law on Identity Cards and Electronic Identification [requires] all Germans to possess a form of identity’ - there is no free or mandatory provision of ID for people in the US and UK, making it so that you are more likely to carry ID the richer you are in these countries. As the UK’s Electoral Reform Society has revealed, 11 million Britons had no passport or driving license, while 3.5 million do not have access to photo ID. This poses a clear threat to the democracy of UK politics, casting out legitimate minority ethnic and working-class voters, whilst further protecting the dominance of elite economic and political interests. 

What are the implications of the UK’s government’s move towards disenfranchising likely-oppositional voters, in light of the US government’s similar diffusion of public trust in its own voting system?

Voter ‘Fraud’ 

Concerns about personation fraud at voting booths were used as a justification for the importation of such a Trumpian move to quell democracy in the UK, with the Electoral Commission stating that the requirement of ID had a ‘positive impact on people’s perception of the security of the polling station process’. Yet in 2017 there was only one conviction of such a case amongst 45 million votes across the UK. ‘With no evidence of widespread fraud’, the Electoral Reform Society clarifies, ‘even a handful of people not voting as they left their ID at home, or were denied a vote as a poll worker thought they didn’t match, would have a far bigger impact on election results than alleged fraud.’

A clear giveaway as to the deception of the move towards voter suppression is the emphasis on public perception of security with little to no real threat to that security. Practically, it would require great levels of organization to effectively tamper with election results through personation fraud; a case of personation might produce one fraudulent vote, where thousands would be necessary to create any tangible effect on results. 

In light of the Windrush scandal, during which a generation of Carribean-British migrants were haphazardly laden with the requirement to provide documentation supporting their rights to preside in the UK, the Conservatives’ move to exclude ID-less voters takes a similar turn in entrenching a political demographic majority: white-British and middle to upper-class voters. 


Deliberate Exclusion 

In keeping with the myth propagated to subjects of the British colonies, the commonwealth status I hold always seemed like one of privilege, according to me the right to vote in UK local and general elections while even EU students were barred from that right in the election that decided Boris Johnson’s victory. But as the Windrush scandal showed, this status is a petty and pretty fruitless reparation for the impacts of British imperialism and colonial proto-capitalism (now, global capitalism). 

While commonwealth citizens like myself hold an automatic right to vote in the UK, voting is not possible without a National Insurance Number (NIN), which is only automatically issued to those who are already residing in the UK prior to the age of sixteen - I arrived in the UK precisely at that age. You also need an NIN to legally work in the UK and claim benefits. 

My three applications for an NIN were recently rejected on the grounds of insufficient identification proof, though I provided copies of both my passport and official Residency Permit. A fellow American friend who also went through this gruelling bureaucratic process with the Department of Work and Pensions was advised by her interviewee not to disclose any intentions to obtain an NIN for voting purposes, only work.  

This shows how deliberately and systemically the UK government excludes rightful voters, and obscures the authority of that right, marking a dark turn towards the suppression and gerrymandering tactics prominent in US voting. Journalist Nick Cohen pointed out how ‘the corruption of politics is the strangest thing: an unnoticed outrage. It’s not that it’s an official secret. It’s just that few seem to care. One day, we’ll look back at today’s obscure manoeuvres in esoteric committees and ask why more did not protest when protesting might have made a difference.’

Indeed, until we recognise the looming threat to democracy posed by voter-suppression tactics already happening under the surface, the minutest changes in voting policy might accumulate in a large-scale disenfranchisement of already vulnerable electorates. With the co-incidence of Trump’s tantrum about mail-in-ballots, dishonest claims over voter fraud in the UK in 2020 mark the potential trajectory of public distrust in democracy and the empowerment of the Right across two world powers. 

Sources

culture, social justiceSunstroke MagazineJade Ashley Yong, Jas Calcitas, essayComment