The New South Wales opposition has warned against a plan to force voters to show identification at polling booths, saying the laws are unnecessary and would serve only to disenfranchise parts of the electorate. The NSW government is due to respond in coming months to a parliamentary committee’s report on the 2015 state election, which recommended that voters be required to produce ID in future polls. On Tuesday federal Liberal MP for North Sydney and NSW moderate powerbroker, Trent Zimmerman, called for compulsory voter ID for federal elections in the Coalition party room meeting. Identification laws are designed as a way of preventing voter fraud, but are criticised for imposing a barrier to voter participation.
Research, particularly from the United States, has shown stricter identification laws have restricted less educated and lower-income voters from participating.
The Human Rights Law Centre has previously warned such laws provide a barrier to ageing and younger voters, and to Indigenous Australians, those sleeping rough, or residents in remote parts of the electorate.
The NSW opposition leader, Luke Foley, is now calling for the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, to rule out the proposal. “It’s undemocratic, duplicitous, and wrong,” Foley said. “There is zero evidence that this has ever happened on any kind of meaningful scale in New South Wales. No one has credibly suggested that aspiring politicians are organising gangs to turn up at polling booths in disguise.
Full Article: Labor says NSW voter ID plan is ‘undemocratic’ and unnecessary | Australia news | The Guardian.