Photo ID Requirement Could Seriously Disrupt General Election, Says Think Tank

Polls will open across the UK on Thursday for elections Yui Mok/PA

The next general election could be “seriously disrupted” by the new requirement for voters to show an accepted photo ID, a local government membership body has warned.

The next general election is due by January 2025. Under new rules, voters will have to bring a photo ID to the polls, if they want to cast a vote.

The local elections in May were the first in Great Britain to require voters to show a form of identification. The government has argued that voter IDs reduce the chance of fraud and are a “reasonable and proportionate” requirement.

But workers responsible for registering electors have said that it will bring new pressures to organising the vote process.

Electoral administrators surveyed by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) (pdf), said that voter ID added to their stress, caused by limited resources and short timetables.

One surveyed administrator, who worked on May elections, said it was easy to make a “catastrophic” error, given the complexity of the process.

“If because you’re focusing on voter ID, or on VAC applications you neglect to check your ballot papers properly, that’s a ballot paper that’s gone out that’s incorrect and that could be something that’s really difficult then to come back on,” the administrator told LGIU.

Acceptable forms of voter ID include a UK passport, driver’s license and a Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) among others.

The photo ID requirement has only been tested in local elections, said the survey, questioning how it will play out in a general election. Approximately 14,000 voters could not vote in May because they could not show an accepted form of ID.

The Electoral Commission, however, reported high (89 percent) levels of satisfaction with the process of voting. Before election day, 87 percent of people in England knew that they would have to show an ID to vote.

However, interviews with local administrators showed they were “haunted by the spectre of the next general election,” said chief executive of the LGIU, Jonathan Carr-West.

Turnout

With the general election looming, the LGIU survey looked into the impact of the ID requirement on voter turnout. There is evidence that certain groups of the population would be at risk of exclusion.

This includes elderly and younger electors, disabled electors, electors without English as a first language and poorer electors.

“A higher turnout election, with electors likely to be more emotionally invested, areas that have not had a chance to try voter ID yet taking their first attempt, and a whole tranche of new legislative changes, mean that the story with implementing compulsory voter ID is far from over,” Mr. Carr-West said.

In May, local authorities received £4.75 million of additional funding from the government to support communications about voter ID.

The LGIU think tank advised the government to keep advertising the voter ID requirements throughout the next local and general elections. It also called for a widened list of acceptable types of IDs.

The Electoral Commission echoed the recommendation to review the list of accepted forms of ID. Shadow minister for democracy Florence Eshalomi said the government must commit to the proposed reforms and heavily expand the number of valid IDs.

Funding Concerns

Another area of concern among electoral workers was funding for local authorities and the recruitment of new administrators.

A report by an election observer group Democracy Volunteers looked into elections funding in England. It revealed that in the period of 2016-2021 there had been a 5.5 percent reduction in the number of staff and a 40 percent below-inflation rise in funding for elections.

While 88 percent of those surveyed by the LGIU said they had adequate resources during May elections, many were concerned about the long-term funding of the voter ID regulations.

One administrator said that there was not enough time or money to “feel that we had implemented voter ID well.”

Another worker said that after being “burnt out after this May’s elections,” the team was not sure how it would “survive” the next elections.

The Electoral Commission expects the government to make significant changes ahead of elections in 2024 and the next general election. This includes securing fully functioning operation resources, sufficient time and capacity.