The government can do better than this on voter ID

Since voter ID was imposed in 2023, we know voters have been turned away from polling stations over 40,000 times and not returned. This alone is a shocking enough fact, but that’s not even the full picture.

This figure is likely only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the damaging impact it has had on our democracy, as it won’t account for people who simply stayed at home on polling day as they did not have an accepted form of ID. In short, voter ID has already prevented tens of thousands of people casting their vote, leaving them excluded from decisions that affect them, and adding to a general sense of disconnect with our democracy.

So, it was deeply disheartening to see the government’s democracy minister, Rushanara Ali, saying this week that she has no plans to scrap voter ID. Asked at a select committee on Tuesday whether ending voter ID was “on the table”, the minister said:

“No, it’s not. What we are focused on is improving the system and making sure that we look at what else we can do in relation to voter ID, and getting those legitimate voters who are excluded included.”

Voter ID was always a solution in search of a problem

Ever since the previous government suggested the idea of demanding people present ID at polling stations, we have opposed it as an unnecessary barrier to people casting votes they are entitled to. The question from the start was what problem was voter ID solving?

In the UK the levels of impersonation fraud – people pretending to be someone else at a polling station to cast a vote – are vanishingly small (In 2019, the last general election without ID in place, there were only 33 allegations). The truth is that voter ID has always been a solution in search of a problem, and since its introduction has created problems that weren’t there before.

Even members of the government that brought it in have openly admitted they now think voter ID was a terrible idea. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a cabinet office minister and business secretary under the last government, told the National Conservatism Conference in 2023 that voter ID was an act of ‘gerrymandering’ that ‘upset a system that worked perfectly well’.

He said: “Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them – as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.

“We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well and was one of the glories of our country actually.”

Legitimate voters turned away

Voter ID has also thrown up numerous absurd situations at polling stations over the three elections it has been in force, which include the last two sets of local elections and the general election. Most notably, Boris Johnson, the prime minister who brought in the policy, being turned away by elections staff as he was unable to produce an accepted form of ID himself. We have also seen a decorated veteran of Afghanistan and Northern Ireland turned away as his veterans’ card wasn’t accepted, something the government has since moved to rectify.

The ERS has also recorded the stories of dozens of voters who have been turned away as their professional – often government issued – IDs were not on the list of accepted ID, including police officers and nurses.

The government should be breaking down the barriers to voting

Aside from the immediate damage voter ID has  done, it also is a worrying sign of the trajectory our democracy has been on in recent years. Instead of becoming a country where it is easier for people to vote, we have seen barriers erected that makee it harder for people to take part in our democracy. Participation is the lifeblood of democracy and if fewer people are voting it means our democracy is becoming weaker. Which is why it was concerning to see the last general election’s turnout slump to the second-lowest level in a century.

If the government is planning to leave voter ID in place, despite even members of the last government saying it was a mistake, then, at a minimum, ministers need to drastically expand the list of ways people can prove who they are at the polling station.

This could be done several ways, such as including non-photographic ID, and IDs that voters are likely to be carrying on them (such as bank cards). Allowing voters to use poll cards as accepted forms of ID would also help reduce the impact of voter ID. In the 2018 Voter ID pilots, areas which allowed poll cards to be used as identification along with other forms of photo ID recorded the lowest percentages of voters not returning with correct ID.

Introducing vouching, which is used in some US states and Canada, would also give people another avenue to casting their vote. The vouching system allows for another voter, who has ID, to vouch for someone who doesn’t. The person vouching for someone else signs an affidavit which means there is a paper trail should any irregularities need to be investigated. These are just a number of ways that the voter ID system could be expanded to give people more options to prove their ID.

We can’t continue turning away tens of thousands of people, due to allegations of an offence in the low double figures. By drastically expanding the list of ways you can prove who you are, the government could remove the worst excesses of voter ID.

Yet, important as it is to increase the current narrow number of options for accepted ID, the best way to expand people’s access to voting it to remove the barrier voter ID presents by scrapping the scheme altogether.

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