General Chat

This follows on from Rose's 'General Rant' Thread :-0

Not sure if this was mentioned in that Thread but photo ID will be required if you wish to Vote in the upcoming local elections in May and General Elections from October. I think this might only apply to those voting in England.

If you don't have acceptable ID you can apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate. The following gives more info about the changes

Local elections: What you need to vote is changing in England - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65175641

My passport is still valid for a few months, but my bus pass is usually with me wherever I go, so that will be my small and handy ID.

I can't remember not voting in any election, so I will continue to do so.

There are a lot of important issues affecting this general area of Kent, not least a nearby council voting through a new town on land that was already council owned.

There has been large scale housing development, some on old MOD land, even without this 8000 plus household increase...... all feeding in to the same hospital of course.
Unless we vote, we can't really help change things.

I have a postal vote for the May election but hope to renew passport in time for general election.

Certain ID is not acceptable as i enquired about rail pass which I was about to renew

here's what you can use

Older Person’s Bus Pass funded by the Government of the United Kingdom
Disabled Person’s Bus Pass funded by the Government of the United Kingdom
Oyster 60+ Card funded by the Government of the United Kingdom
Freedom Pass
Scottish National Entitlement Card
60 and Over Welsh Concessionary Travel Card
Disabled Person’s Welsh Concessionary Travel Card
Senior SmartPass issued in Northern Ireland
Registered Blind SmartPass or Blind Person’s SmartPass issued in Northern Ireland
War Disablement SmartPass issued in Northern Ireland
60+ SmartPass issued in Northern Ireland
Half Fare SmartPass issued in Northern Ireland

The free voter authority cert requires a photo, more info on that here including for the other countries,

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/voter-id/applying-a-voter-authority-certificate

The list we were sent by one of the political parties also included a blue badge and said iID didn’t need to be in date as long as the photo was recognisably you.

For many years we have had to show valid photo ID when voting, along with the Voter Registration Card which we receive in the mail in the weeks before the election, whether that be a municipal, provincial or federal election. All of those have different voters' lists.

There are various options as to what can be used, but it must be valid.

If all else fails, a potential voter can be vouched for at the voting station by someone who has known them for at least a certain time.

We are registered for postal voting.

This is since I could not persuade the authority to change our nominated election booth back to where it was 40+ years ago (and still is) when we lived a five doors away, which was a ten-minute level walk for us.

Our next-door neighbour still votes at our old voting place but our current house is the boundary and unfortunately the new place to cast our vote meant a vey steep walk uphill to home or, if driving, with so little off-road parking - a search for a street spot.