Who might be at risk of fraud or be disenfranchised?
Firstly, houses of multiple occupancy such as occupied by students and poorly paid workers. Only one name on the utility bills. Secondly a house with a large family; three generations, perhaps, but only one name on the bill. Very hard to provide ID.
I assume that the homeless are considered unsuitable to vote.
Ethnic minorities and especially those with a poor grasp of English and local law. They may find that someone helpful has registered them as voters by helping them fill out the forms (or doing it for them) and then helpfully collected the voting card for them and used it to vote for them.
Traditional home owners should have little problem with voting; the most you might get is someone using your polling card when you are away (or in hospital, perhaps). It is the poor who don't own or rent their own home who are most likely to be disenfranchised. People living in temporary accomodation, hostels and the like.
A robust system of ID cards would help to solve many issues to do with disenfranchisement of voters. The Police State issues associated with ID cards may be too high a price to pay. Would you fully trust the current government not to abuse this system in any way?
However, if you go on holiday to France or Spain, for example, you have to produce ID whenever you book into any accomodation. They still seem to manage to be reasonably democratic. So who knows?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
