Voter ID introduced during England local elections

Adam Dunstan Cobtributor

Citizens headed to polling stations across England on May 4th to vote in the local elections. This was a significant day, not just because it was Rishi Sunak’s first opportunity to see how well he sits with voters, but because it was the first election where people had to show a form of identification to vote. This requirement to show ID to vote in Great Britain was made law by The Elections Act 2022, but why did the government introduce this and what impact did it have on the 2023 Local Elections?

Electoral fraud is when someone attempts to interfere in an election by voting more than once or by pretending to be someone else. A 2014 report found no evidence of this happening in the UK, however, it found that lack of ID at polling stations was an “actual and perceived weakness” of the UK electoral system internationally. This resulted in the commitment to voter ID being placed in the Conservative Party’s manifestos before the 2017 and 2019 elections. This introduction was not without controversy. Opponents argued that cases of electoral fraud were too small to justify the need for ID and instead maintained that the government was trying to make it harder for people to vote. The 2019 general election saw a turnout of 47.5 million people and just 164 cases of electoral fraud. Furthermore, just 0.000057% of all votes cast in the 2019 elections were related to voter impersonation. The Conservative government responded by saying that voter ID would “protect the integrity of our democracy”.

Voter ID has also been controversial because the UK has no free or low-cost ID options. The main forms of ID include a passport which costs £82.50 or a provisional driver’s licence which costs £34. These costs also partly explain why 11 million people possess neither. Nevertheless, voters without ID can apply for a ‘Voter Authority Certificate’ which would allow them to vote; opponents have also criticised this, as it could be difficult for homeless and elderly people to obtain.

This election did see people being turned away due to forgetting their IDs; said people did not return, according to those working at polling stations. There was also an instance where an immunosuppressed woman did not vote as she did not want to remove her face-covering to prove she matched her photo ID. Married women and transgender people also got turned away as their documents did not match their new names. The Prime Minister said that ID checks meant elections would remain a “high-integrity process” while the Election Commission chairman John Pullinger accepted that there were issues with voter ID and that the organisation needed to assess their impact.