How illegal?

[flashpig]

I'm not in the place that I'm registered to vote by about 100 miles / �30.

While I would like to vote it would be difficult and costly to do it, so could I get my 17 year old brother to go in my place? He knows what I would vote, and looks not only over 18 but looks like me too, and I trust him, but I don't want to see him locked up for fraud or any of that stuff.

Still, I would like my views to count for something.

[acw]

Allowing people to fraudulently impersonate other members of the electorate is a very dangerous way to go.  Clearly flashpig has/had the best of intentions.  However allowing this sort of behavour without the proper process of applying for proxy voting would open up the election to massive irregularity.  Perhaps you can't see that impersonating other people is wrong or fraudulent.  In that case, next time I'll vote on your behalf - does that sound ok?  Do you trust me?

[paula.e]

One person one vote and only one person have the right to cast that vote. What you imply flashpig is still fraud and degrades the democratic process.

[MargeB]

The trust I have in the word of my siblings is much stronger than my concern that one of them might want to commence a strategy for world domination by stealing siblings' votes, one by one.

The desire I have for a short life lived with flexibility and realism is much much stronger than my respect for the desire to infuse life with dotting of 'i's' and crossing of 't's' in order to try and give it some meaning.

[5029]

What you have to remember is that the people working in the polling centres are local people and there is a good chance that one of them could recognise him or your photo.

 

I have seen a friend or neighbour working there everytime i have been to vote!

[Lillabet]

I just wanted to respond to some of the posts in this thread. I understand why someone wants to vote and why they feel that they would rather send someone in their place than not vote at all. However there seems to have been a lot of mocking of the people who've said that to do so without making arrangements first is illegal.

As far as I can see acw and others answered flashpig's question - which is what this site is here for. The point that these laws are here for a reason - to stop people taking others votes is I think a reasonable one.

Clearly some respondents disagree - especially MargeB. Fair enough, disagree. But to disagree by mocking someone else and posting simply to laugh at them, then saying that those who disagree with her are trying to 'infuse life with dotting of is and crossing of ts to try to give it some meaning' seems unnecessarily petulant, childish and frankly mean. To disparage acw and pass judgement on her life on this basis is harsh.

Disagree by all means but please try to do so without mocking. I like this site because there are interesting discussions to be had where opinions differ. If you can't make a constructive comment - and 'I'm laughing at you' isn't constructive - then maybe don't post on that thread!

[acw]

Lillabet thank you so much!!! :-D

 

All I wanted to do was answer flashpig's question.  As I said repeatedly there is clearly nothing wrong with flashpig's intentions.  However, encouraging such behaviour risks encouraging fraudulent voting on a more general basis.  I personally don't think it should be difficult to understand that vote stealing does not help democracy. 

 

Not was I meaning to be excessively bureaucratic.  It seems MargeB has a number of siblings.  I feel very certain that she would be deeply upset if any of them came to any harm.  Imagine if one of them were to be injured in an RTA by a driver who was drunk or speeding (or both) because "the chances of getting caught were minimal".  I know the scale is different, but the principle is exactly the same. 

 

If you can't understand that, then perhaps thinking, rather than blindly laughing would be more a more constructive use of your time. 

 

I am truly grateful for lillabet coming to my defence.  Perhaps other readers/posters might also understand that my life plenty of meaning on its own, without a need for i dotting and t crossing.  There seems a frequent misunderstanding on AB that people who care about one thing, are unable to care about other things.  For me that is simply not the case. 

 

Thanks

acw

[rod]

MargeB  you do go on and talk a load of rubbish at least acw is talking sense and very hard to argue against his answer. I would like to see poll cheats put in jail.It's to late now anyway.

[acw]

I'm a GIRL!!!  My initials are ACW and my name is Anna! Goodness I had enough of this in Germany with my bank statements address to "Herr Wood" :-p  I'll let you off though, since oyu said nice things about me! :-)

[rod]

Sorry Anna  acw I will know in future :-)

[MargeB]

lol @ rod

[MargeB]

Anna are you german?

[flaming]

I kept thinking "was flashpig winding us up", in fact I was hoping so.  There were notices outside the Polling Stations about the penalty for impersonating somone else, so it's just not the hol. at HM 's pleasure, there's the odd couple of thousand pounds.  There's little point in having elections with the laxness of attitude about them amongst the young (seeing that flashpig's 17 year old brother looks like .. (him? must be with a name that would pass muster).  What with that and the open-to-fraud postal voting, I feel that we are being cheated of a true result. This is a good case for mandatory voting as that ought to rule out any possible jiggery-pokery.

[MargeB]

Flashpig, I don't think what you are suggesting would make the slightest difference to democracy and a judge would not admonish you for it. You are not trying to 'use a false vote', merely use your own vote by the only means how. The law is in place to uphold principles, not to place shackles round us. The principle is that people should exercise their right to vote, and that people should not try to use their own vote more than once. You are not doing this here. You are merely using your brother to exercise your own vote. Any suggestion that in doing so you are eroding "democracy" is ludicrous.

I still stand firmly by my comments about 'dotting i's and crossing t's', I think the examples some people on here gave of this are perfect examples. Your actions had no effect whatsoever on democracy and did no harm to anybody (the opposite, in fact, you got to use your vote), yet people were happy to suggest throwing the book at you because 'the law said so'. It's this same spirit that is applied to a very many situations (I'm thinking of, for example, traffic wardens here), and makes me pretty sick to witness it.

That's what I think of it. I know it runs against what others think. Quite happy to make let them have their opinions.

[MargeB]

The fact that they start wailing like little school kids who haven't got my way and try to report me to teacher, however, just because I pointed out that I disagreed with their assumptions, does make me laugh out loud.

By the way, my initial LOL to acw was totally deliberate, I did feel that the initial approaches to flashpig were too direct, given quite an innocent question, and I stepped in to defend.

LOL

[netibiza]

Glad we don't have this prob in Spain.  Here we have to hand over our election cards which we have received and signed for in the post - then we have to show our identity cards to about 4 different people from all parties who glare, stare, make me feel like a right criminal and then I can vote.

[netibiza]

oh and by the way - these are people I have known for 30+yrs and meet them everyday - but come Polling Day they are ogres.

[Artful]

I have been shocked by some of the postings on this site. Where are we going? Like others I can understand why flashpig posted his question and I am sure acw has given him a most concise and, for me, totally sober and straightforward opinion back and all I can say is thankgoodness Lillabet stood up for her. What is this mudslinging and mockery about?

netibiza it is the same in France - elector's card, ID checked by several people. And I think that that is right, as was said "one person, one vote", we're in a democracy.

[Artful]

Sorry - as paula.e said "one person, one vote".

[LiIIabet]

acw, I'm sorry I got your gender wrong, I didn't mean to make you angry again.

[flaming]

It would be unusual for a German person to be called 'Wood'. unless there was an English or American father married to a German woman.  In that case I wonder whether a person is born German, or retains the nationality of the father...... I imagined that acw was resident in Germany for a bit.