Definition of voter ‘fraud’ is complex

I RECENTLY wrote on the issue of voting identity and asked my MP Anne Marie-Morris for her opinion, and I have now received a reply.

In it, she clearly states she will not support the Government over the bill to impose the possession of a Personal Identity Card requirement to vote.

She says: “I believe that voting is a fundamental right and should never be made more difficult without clear and compelling reason. Ministers have cited the risk of electoral fraud as the main justification for these changes, but the evidence I have seen points to in-person voting fraud being incredibly rare. I do not believe that there is a clear case to make such a significant change to a voting system that has served us well for so long, and I am therefore unable to support the proposals.”

I feel the word ‘fraud’ is quite wrong to describe the act of theft of a vote, or by consent impersonates another, when it’s been done within the knowledge and intention of the voter. Theft of a vote gets complicated as it suggests intellectual property. I am sure that in a quite casual way some people

will – because they are asked to – go off and vote for mum or dad or an auntie, who does not feel up to going out on that day and they want to vote and make it known who for.

I know it has happened and it’s wrong... but it is not fraud in my eyes when it is for the greater good.

No one has lost – in fact someone has gained – one vote. Fraud is to contrive to avoid paying for goods, services or taxes when payment should lawfully be made.

The farmer who cuts a cabbage from his field and has it for his Sunday lunch and did not pay

20p for it, so it does not appear as income in his tax return... that is fraud. The Buy-to-Let owner, or B&B proprietor who is paid, say, £2,000 in cash that never appears anywhere in their tax return... that is fraud.

M Don Frampton

Newton Abbot