The way we place our votes needs to be changed. When hundreds of people get disenfranchised due to the incompetence of returning officers, 27 people can be registered to vote in one property without any pre-election investigation being carried out, and in general no-one needs to provide any proof of identification beyond a name and address in order to vote, there’s a problem.

Disenfranchisement

The queues at polling stations on Thursday evening made a mockery of our democracy. Especially since they were by no means necessary. These people had not all turned up at 9.45pm, they have been queueing for hours. Like Britons do, they formed an orderly queue and waited to take part in our democracy. But when they were then refused their right to vote because 10pm had arrived, they quite rightly strongly objected.

The reasons out forward for these queues are unacceptable. There is no excuse for running out of ballot papers or not having enough staff to deal with a 65-70% turnout in a decent time. Any well-run polling station operation should be more than capable of dealing with a steady stream of voters and the inevitable influx when people return from work.

Anyone who is unable to vote because they turn up right at the very last minute, it’s their own fault and they have no right to complain. But this situation is very different. I think that those who were disenfranchised through no fault of their own must call for a rerun of the election. And must be given it.

How many electors in there?!

How many adults can reasonably be registered to vote at one address? I don’t suppose their is any legal limit, but when there are 27 people registered to vote at one flat and 15 of them were added in the past month, some sort of concerns must be raised. In such situations, it really should be the case that all individuals at that address be removed from the electoral roll and informed that they must present themselves at the town hall with photo ID and proof of address (and proof of their right to vote) to be re-added.

Our voting system should be resilient enough to not be easily gamed. We seem to be far too trusting when it comes to our democracy, quite possibly to most important thing, compared with virtually everything else.

ID at the polling booth

Currently, we do not need to prove our identity when we vote. Just telling the clerk our name and address is enough to get us our ballot paper and put our cross in the box. Therefore, it is very much open to fraud as people could easily vote as someone else and then again as themselves a few hours later – and no-one would know.

Why do we need ID to open a bank account but not to take part in our democracy? I really can’t understand why it is not a requirement to have photo ID – or at least some form of proof of address or identity and the polling card.

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It is important that our democracy is clear – and seen to be clear – of any fraud. I’m not convinced that it is any more, especially since postal voting was introduced.

This is a far bigger threat to democracy and more in need of reform than the electoral system ever could be.