Referendum silliness
January 12th, 2005The scenes of what appears to be an almighty cock-up are playing out in Edinburgh at the moment. There are proposals for a congestion charge being laid out, and there is to be a referendum in the city on the matter.
However, for a highly stupid reason, not everyone who has registered to vote will automatically be able to. If, like me, you have registered, but opted for the Edited Register rather than the full one (16% of the city have done so), to avoid getting junk mail and other rubbish sent to you, then you won’t be able to vote straight off. Unfortunately, the “do not pass on my details to other organisations” bit means that Edinburgh City Council are unable to use your details for the referendum, which is ridiculous - I ticked the box to avoid junk mail, not to have my right to vote diminished.
The council have provided a registration form for any Edinburgh resident on the Edited Register who wishes to take part in the referendum; it’s a fairly painless form to fill out, though I wonder what checks the council are actually able to perform, given the limitations they are under; if there are none, it could be a really easy way to create fake aliases and attempt fraud.