{"id":69658,"date":"2023-05-05T07:13:49","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T06:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=69658"},"modified":"2023-05-05T08:28:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T07:28:08","slug":"yesterday-saw-the-first-reversal-of-the-right-to-vote-since-1832","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2023\/05\/05\/yesterday-saw-the-first-reversal-of-the-right-to-vote-since-1832\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday saw the first reversal of the right to vote since 1832"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I posted this on Twitter this morning:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">ITV reports \u201cpolling station tellers in Oxfordshire say &quot;large numbers&quot; of voters were being turned away, reporting that between 10-25% were unable to vote.\u201d There was almost no voter fraud in the UK. There is now, and it is officially sanctioned.  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ltcyusjL62\">https:\/\/t.co\/ltcyusjL62<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RichardJMurphy\/status\/1654360427898306561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 5, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I am unapologetic if my anger is apparent.<\/p>\n<p>I am quite willing to accept that the absence of detected voter fraud in the UK did not prove there was none. I am equally willing to believe that the amount of such fraud was tiny and almost certainly utterly immaterial.<\/p>\n<p>That is no longer true. Large numbers of people were denied an opportunity to vote yesterday, and many would not have returned with voter ID, even if they possessed it. Democracy failed as a result.<\/p>\n<p>Of course it can be said that this was due to this being the first time voter ID was required, but what is very clear is that the message that ID was required did not get through, despite a lot being spent in an attempt to communicate the fact.<\/p>\n<p>And what we do not know is how many did not even try to vote because of this requirement.<\/p>\n<p>All we can say is that democracy took a massive step backwards yesterday. The young, the old, the poorest and the most vulnerable in particular \u00a0were denied access to polling stations. That was a deliberate move to reduce the franchise.<\/p>\n<p>That is the reduction in suffrage since 1832.<\/p>\n<p>First they came for those they thought no one cared about.<\/p>\n<p>Who will they come for next?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I posted this on Twitter this morning: ITV reports \u201cpolling station tellers in Oxfordshire say &quot;large numbers&quot; of voters were being turned away, reporting that<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2023\/05\/05\/yesterday-saw-the-first-reversal-of-the-right-to-vote-since-1832\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69658"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69664,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69658\/revisions\/69664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}