MEDIA RELEASE VOTER IDENTIFICATION LAWS SHOULD BE REJECTED - 26 November 2013
MEDIA RELEASE
VOTER IDENTIFICATION LAWS SHOULD BE REJECTED
Last week the Queensland Government introduced a Bill which will require voters to produce identification before voting at state elections.
Michael Cope, President of the QCCL, said today, “Voter identification laws will unjustifiably disenfranchise the elderly, the young, the poor and the disadvantaged.”
The government’s own discussion paper makes it clear that there is no evidence of substantial voter identification fraud in Queensland. In fact, the highly regarded former head of the Australian Electoral Commission, Colin Hughes, has remarked on the extremely low level of fraud in Australian elections in general.
“In the absence of any evidence of substantial fraud there is in our view no justification for the government to take a measure which will quite clearly disenfranchise those who do not have ready access to identification such as the poor, indigenous and otherwise disadvantaged individuals in our community.”
In Australia where there is no compulsory form of identification many people going to the polling booth who do not, for example, have a driver’s licence, are going to be deprived of their vote. Those people will include not only the poor but also the young and the elderly who have either not acquired their driver’s licence or who have given up their driver’s licence.
The history of voter identification registration laws in the United States is that they have been repeatedly and often successfully challenged on the basis that they have the effect of disenfranchising poor, particularly black, voters.
In any event, the situation in Australia is fundamentally different from that in the United States because we have compulsory voting. Compulsory voting, because it requires the registration of everyone, makes the prospect of fraud much less and puts the focus on confirming a person has a right to vote at the registration stage.
Mr Cope said, “The QCCL calls upon the government to withdraw this entirely unnecessary and retrograde measure.”
For further information contact Michael Cope President QCCL on 07 3223 5939 during office hours and on 0432 847 154
Website: www.qccl.org.au