Should everyone keep the right to vote by post?
Anyone registered to vote in Great Britain can request a postal vote without giving a reason, a rule in place since 2001. Northern Ireland restricts postal voting to those with specific reasons. Postal votes made up 26.2% of valid ballots at the 2024 general election, up from 21.0% in 2019. The Elections Act 2022 added ID checks on applications, three-year limits on postal vote arrangements and a ban on campaigners handling postal votes. Reform UK has proposed restricting postal voting to the elderly, disabled, armed forces and overseas workers, citing fraud concerns. Fact-checkers found postal vote fraud convictions to be rare.
9 Opinions
26 per cent seems extraordinarily high. Copy Northern Ireland: Only with a good, proven reason. Add elderly and disabled people, and those who serve overseas, automatically. The access argument is a straw man. Polling stations are pretty ubiquitous; I'm sure most people pass one at some point in their day.
Yes, and we should be improving our 'democracy' until voting matters
There is absolutely no evidence of fraud whatsoever, and all commentary is imported American slop. The comments here alone show it’s not about fraud risk and about prejudice. Voter restrictions always hurt the most vulnerable
It's good to have a postal vote for the elderly and disabled. But, the voting process lacks oversight.
Postal voting is nice to have in a high trust society. But when you import the 3rd world, it just becomes rife with fraud.
Reform once again trying to copy their favourite yankee despot
I would keep this right only for immobile people. Also I would like to have mandatory stats, on how post vote was casted, Electoral Commission is not collecting this data at the moment.
Regrettably, it's far too open to fraud and family voting than any other method. I can't see a situation, other than removing it entirely, that guarantees our voting system is as robust as it can be.
Postal voting should be in specific rare exceptions only. If you’re able to you vote in person at the polling station