COUNCIL DISENFRANCHISEMENT
       
       2024-04-13
       
       Like much of the UK, there are local elections where I live next month. After
       coming home from a week of Three Rings volunteering I found my poll card on
       the doormat. Can you spot the bleeding-obvious mistake?
       
 (IMG) Poll card for West Oxfordshire District Council (and other) local elections on 2 May 2024 addressed to "Dan Que".
       
       This'll be the first election for which I've needed to bring photographic ID
       to the polling station. That shouldn't be a problem: I have a passport and
       driving license and whatnot.
       
       But just to be absolutely certain, I had the local council - the same people
       who issued me the polling card! - supply me with a voter authority certificate:
       
 (IMG) Voter Authority Certificate for "Dan Q".
       
       So now I'm in a pickle. West Oxfordshire District Council are asking me to
       produce photo ID in the wrong name when I turn up at a polling station next
       month. It doesn't even match the name on the photo ID that they themselves
       issued me.
       
       This would be less-infuriating were it not for the fact that they had my name
       wrong in the same way on an electoral roll form they sent me in August 2022
       (They'd had my name right before August 2022, including on previous poll
       cards; I can only assume that some human operator "corrected" it to the wrong
       thing at some point.). When I contacted them to have them fix it, they
       promised that the underlying problem was solved (They didn't fix the problem
       immediately in August 2022. Initially, they demanded that I produce proof of
       my change of name from "Dan Que" (which has, of course, never been my name!)
       to "Dan Q", and only later backed down and admitted that they'd made a mistake
       and would correct the PII they were holding about me.) so this very thing
       wouldn't happen.
       
       And yet here we are.
       
 (IMG) Sign on the fence of a school playground reading, in block capitals: "Polling station for Dan Q's imaginary friends only".
       
       Hopefully they'll be able to fix their records promptly or else I guess I'll
       have to apply for a proxy vote, to allow the ballot of my imaginary friend
       "Dan Que" to be cast by me, Dan Q, instead.
       
       And if that isn't the most bizarre form of election fraud you've ever heard
       of, I don't know what is.
       
       Update: True to their word, the council had managed to correct their records
       by the time I reached the polling station this morning. It's still a little
       annoying that they somehow mucked it up in the first place, but I appreciate
       the efficiency with which they corrected their mistake.
       
       LINKS
       
 (HTM) Three Rings
 (DIR) Update