Voter ID

The government must restore the rights of voters and scrap the failed voter ID regime.

The government must restore the rights of voters and scrap the failed voter ID regime. Sign Now >

Millions of people had to bring ID to the polling station for the first time on July 4th 2024.

The general election saw 16,000 voters denied the right to vote and blocked from casting their ballots as they fell foul of the rules. One voter being turned away from a single polling station is one too many.

From the start, we warned that demanding ID was an unnecessary and damaging measure – It has always been a solution in search of a problem.

UK elections are safe and secure

That’s because levels of impersonation have always been extremely low. There were only 10 convictions between 2019 and 2023 out of the tens of millions of votes cast. One voter turned away is one too many, yet the scheme saw 16,000 voters turned away.

16,000 people turned away in one election, vs 10 convictions over 5 years.

Voting is safe and secure in Britain, and public confidence in the running of elections is the highest since 2012. According to the Electoral Commission’s latest tracker of public opinion, 80 percent of people are confident that elections are well run, 87 percent said voting in general is safe from fraud and abuse, and 90 percent that voting at the polling station is safe.

We need to be combatting the huge challenges that undermine our democracy, not putting up paywalls around polling stations.

An expensive distraction

It’s not just those without ID that will have to pay up. The last government’s own figures suggest the scheme will cost up to £180,000,000 extra a decade. A bill we all have to pick up.

A barrier to democracy – for some

Once of the reason so many people were turned away is that the government’s voter ID scheme is a mess. They promised it would be just like picking up a parcel, then decided not to accept ID cards you can use to pick up a parcel.

Strict voter ID rules disproportionately disadvantage people that are already having a tough time. Unlike in countries with a mandatory national ID cards, in the UK the richer you are, the more likely you will have ID. The last government commissioned research found that those with severely limiting disabilities, the unemployed, people without qualifications, and those who had never voted before were all less likely to hold any form of photo ID.

Many citizens who can’t afford to go on foreign holidays don’t have passports, and those that can’t drive don’t have driving licences.

Government-commissioned research found that 2% of people don’t have any form of photo ID (including expired or unrecognisable) and 4% don’t have recognisable ID (roughly 2.1 million people) – making mandatory voter ID a barrier to many people exercising their right to vote.

Our well run elections

Elections are generally very well run in the UK – there are extremely low levels of electoral fraud and people have high confidence in voting. In 2019, the last general election year, there were only 33 allegations of impersonation at the polling station, out of over 58 million votes cast. Adding a major barrier to democratic engagement off the back of so few proven cases would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

 

Why is impersonation so rare?

Requirements to show ID at polling stations would only stop people pretending to be somebody else in order to cast one fake vote. This is an incredibly rare crime because it is such a slow, clunky way to steal an election – and requires levels of organisation that would be easy to spot and prevent.

Firstly, without knowing the result, you can’t work out how many hundreds or thousands of votes you need to steal: if you steal too many it will be obvious, but if you don’t steal enough it makes no difference at all.

Secondly, you need to find enough real people on the electoral register who won’t be casting their ballot. If anyone whose vote has been stolen tries to vote, it instantly reveals the fraud and investigations begin.

Thirdly, you would need a team to go around all the polling stations to cast hundreds or thousands of votes without being spotted going in the same one twice.

Voting is not like picking up a parcel from the post office. Each individual vote only has any value when thousands of others are cast the same way – and it’s simply impractical, with a functioning rule of law and low levels of corruption, to steal enough votes to make a tangible difference.

What about Northern Ireland's scheme?

Faced with extremely high levels of documented in-person electoral fraud, Northern Ireland introduced mandatory ID in 1985 and a free Electoral ID Card in 2002.

At the 1983 General Election, 949 people arrived at polling stations in Northern Ireland only to be told a vote has already been cast in their name and police made 149 arrests for personation, resulting in 104 prosecutions.

Investing millions in the ID scheme was therefore a proportionate response to the significant problem of personation.

But Northern Ireland did not introduce photo ID straightaway – elections took place for almost 20 years with a less stringent ID requirement. It is only since 2003 that voters in Northern Ireland have had to show photo ID at the polling station.

Don't you need ID to vote in Europe?

Nearly all European countries have mandatory ID card schemes with either free or low-cost cards. As ID cards are mandatory in most countries, all voters have ID cards, so no groups of voters are discriminated against.

In the UK we do not have mandatory ID cards and certain groups are far less likely to have ID than others. The elderly and those on low income are less likely to drive or go on holidays abroad for instance.

In the 2011 Census, 9.5 million people stated they did not hold a passport, 9 million do not have a driving licence and research estimates that in 2019 1.3 million lack even a bank account.

The government must restore the rights of voters.

Thousands have been turned away from polling stations already.

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Publications

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Briefings

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Date published
26/03/24
Submission for

Position on mandatory voter ID

Type
Voter ID
Date published
12/01/22
Submission for

Briefing on the Elections Bill – Report stage

Type
Voter ID