Voting campaign

General and Other Policy
1

On the run up to the GE24 I campaigned for Reform UK in Leicester West. More than one in three children in Leicester are living in poverty, and our council/MP has been dominated by Labour. Leicester is a very diverse City with people from all over the world, for the purpose of observation No 2 there are a lot of EU, Romanian and Polish immigrants.

I made 2 key observations while canvassing:

  1. Photo ID - When talking to people, I asked if they voted, a large percentage said “No”. When I questioned why they replied “I don’t have Photo ID”. People are so disengaged with politics and life in general, they can’t afford a passport for a holiday they also can’t afford, and why would they spend money on a driver’s licence when they can’t afford a car. People see the headline’s saying “You Need Photo ID to vote” and they take that as gospel. When I explained there are ways around it (register for a certificate etc) people suddenly became interested.

  2. Eligible EU citizens - I attended several polling stations in my role of Polling Agent. At every location I observed conversations along the lines of “I’m sorry you’re not allowed to vote in this election”. Despite having voted in the local elections, one gentleman expressed his disappointment saying he had been here 25 years. If I am correct, Eligible EU citizens can vote in local elections, however they can not vote in Parliamentary elections. But they can vote in Parliamentary Elections if they apply for citizenship which they can do if have been physically present in the UK for 5 years at a cost of £1630. I got the impression it was the first time a lot of these people had attempted to vote, and that they would have voted Reform given the chance.

In short, I think there are potential new voters here that we need to engage with. I would like to suggest a campaign to educate people on the importance of voting and how to ensure they can vote. These people are not represented in parliament when in reality they are the people we should be most concerned about when making policy decisions.

Thank you

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