As we start to work out the impact of the Conservatives’ attempt at voter suppression, early analysis shows that at least 10,000 people lost out on the chance to vote in the local elections in May. Figures released by local councils suggest include those refused inside the polling stations and don’t count those turned away by greeters on the door.
From the BBC
David Cowling, a former BBC polling expert who is now a visiting research fellow at King’s College London, also says it must be borne in mind that some voters initially turned away later return with ID.
He says evidence from metropolitan borough councils, and the pilots, suggests around 60% of people initially refused a ballot return with valid ID – producing a rough figure of 0.2% refusals of the votes cast.
“That’s arguably 0.2% fewer people than there should be not participating – but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to me that the death of democracy is on the agenda either,” he told BBC Radio 4’s More or Less.
He adds, however, that there are “imponderables” in the council data, including the fact that people turned back by so-called greeters outside polling stations were not included in the published figures.
This first outing for voter ID has taken place at a relatively low turnout set of elections. Turnout in the General Election will be higher and potentially more people will lose out on the opportunity to have their say.
This initial analysis comes in the week when Jacob Rees-Mogg basically admitted at the dreadful National Conservative conference that the measures had been introduced to boost Conservative support but he argued that they had lost the party votes:
He told delegates Labour’s idea was “particularly silly,” adding: “Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding that 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.
“It was done on trust, and the system worked. If there’s any problem in our system, it’s with postal votes, which don’t require voter ID.”
He was comparing the voter ID plan with Keir Starmer’s sensible plan to extend voting rights to EU citizens, which is a very different thing altogether.
I am not so sure that he was right that people voting Conservative would have been disproportionately affected. They are more affluent, tend to have more stable addresses and therefore more likely to have ID.
There are many more studies of the impact of the voter ID requirements yet to come but we know now that almost 10,000 people – that is 1/6 of the size of the town where I live, were denied their right to have their say and that should concern us all.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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Mogg talks about ‘problems’ with postal voting that does not need ID.What is he talking about?
If Rees Mogg is right (whatever our instincts something we should never ultimately rule out) then there is something important here. If sections of the electorate are actually seeing the Conservatives as anti-democratic this raises doubts about the assumption that voters are not interested in constitutional issues. Or is he is simply telling us that there is a small pool of Tory voters who do not have relevant ID? However if Rees Mogg is not telling us what he really thinks (yes, that really is possible at the top of the Conservative Party!) then my point is irrelevant.
@nigel the problem with postal votes is how do you know the person named on the voting form actually cast their vote without interference.
What would interesting is to know more about the demographics of those who turned up without ID. Can’t see anyone under 25 not having ID, likewise many migrants now resident in the UK, any one with a driving licence will have ID. It would seem the people without ID would tend to fall into two groups: those who think they are an exception (brexiteers/tory faithful?) should be made for them, and the elderly who have surrendered their driving licence and not renewed their passport, but should have other approved ID.
With the news coverage, I suspect there will be fewer turning up to vote next time without ID.
Quite a few people under 25 don’t have the required ID. Many do not have driving licences. Many have not yet needed a passport and many of the other forms of ID they use were specifically not allowed.
We need to wary of falling into the exaggeration trap. Yes 10,000 May have been turned away, 60% returned so that is 4,000 who did not vote. One was a Conservative MP who was turned away. If we had a national ID card like most of Europe, this would not be an issue.
Interesting piece. I wonder how many of those turned away were disabled and didn’t have appropriate forms of ID. Many won’t have driving licences and whilst I know the Blue Badge and Freedom Pass (London) were acceptable there are many who don’t have either. Of course the biggest problem for the disabled is physical access to polling stations and accessing the ballot paper. As someone who is blind I am still unable to cast my vote in secret, requiring my mother to complete it on my behalf.
When knocking up on polling day, I encountered a 3-person household who were LD supporters but had no I.D., so didn’t try to vote. I intend to call back and try to acquire a new deliverer!
@Trevor Andrews
As I understand it the 10,000 represents only those who got inside the polling station and were turned away by the staff for not having appropriate id.
At some polling stations there were (or it was planned to have) ‘greeters’ outside – we do not know how many people were turned away by them.
Trevor Andrews says we need to be wary of falling into the “exaggeration trap”. I am afraid the reverse is the case. The 10,000 figure represents those who were turned away by a polling clerk and failed to return (16,000 others were refused and did come back). This is based on reports from 70% of the Councils and it is statistically reasonable to assume that similar proportions of people were affected in the other 30%. There are also (a) those who didn’t enter the polling station because they were headed off by the “greeter” and (b) those who didn’t set out in the first place because they knew they didn’t have suitable ID. While an accurate overall figure is impossible to calculate, it is clearly an awful lot higher than 10,000.
We also need to be wary of falling into the trap of reading too much into the first outing of something new.
Remember, where you are changing people’s behaviour, we can expect some to hold out and some to simply forget. How many people today do not wear motor cycle helmets or car seat belts?
What is coming out of people’s comments is the question, whether this is a backdoor way of introducing ID cards without open debate.
@Peter – perhaps I’m a bit thick, but with my teenagers it seemed blindingly obvious they should get a passport, useful to open a bank account and get a driving licence – proof of age, address, ability to hire e scooters etc. Perhaps this another social divide, some parents help their children and others let them struggle?
@Roland
“perhaps I’m a bit thick, but with my teenagers it seemed blindingly obvious they should get a passport, useful to open a bank account and get a driving licence – proof of age, address, ability to hire e scooters etc.”
Fine if they can afford it.
https://www.gov.uk/passport-fees
@Roland. We also need to be wary of falling into the trap of reading too much into the first outing of something new.
Something new that wasn’t needed. We’ve had more prime ministers in the past year than prosecutions for electoral fraud.
Like @Trevor Andrews, I am slowly coming around to the idea that we shall have to introduce some form of national identification document in the future. We’re always being asked for some form of ID whether that is a passport, a driving licence or similar document that it would be sensible to introduce a standardised form of ID based on recognised international standards.
It’s ridiculous that private companies (even if they are non-profit ones, such as CitizenCard) have had to step into to fulfill this need.
This appears to be latest attempt to soften us up to accept ID cards. If we ever get to that stage we will have lost our civil liberties. The Government of the day will have the power to cancel each and every one of us.
There is more actual security with the way we currently identify ourselves with bits of paper and bills. At the moment we would have to suborn multiple people to gain a false identity. With ID cards the criminals will simply suborn a local pharmacist (who I think were among those chosen to be able to declare an identity).
If there is significant voter fraud wouldn’t it be with bulk postal votes? I see no attempt to tighten up identification there.
“There is more actual security with the way we currently identify ourselves with bits of paper and bills. At the moment we would have to suborn multiple people to gain a false identity. ”
Certainly with government-held data this is an issue. I don’t believe that e.g. HMRC should have access to anything other than my dealings with them; likewise NHS should only have access to my medical data. I would have no confidence in government not using a national Id card number to enable a system override to access all the data held about me across all departments.
Having said that – it seems to me some people are remarkably careless about their personal data, judging by the BBC’s news item today about ‘shoulder-surfing’ to steal a mobile phone when the owner has just entered a PIN.
If ID cards remove civil liberties, explain why almost every country in Europe has them and, they haven’t lost their civil liberties. I now have a German ID card and a Greek Residents’ permit. Try telling people in those countries that they are not free.
Let’s come to voter ID. If you think that personation isn’t a problem try living in one of the big cities, where wards have up to 30,000 electors. Ask their returning officers if they have issued tendered ballots. The Leeds RO told me they issued them at every election. A tendered ballot is issued to a voter who insists they haven’t voted when the polling station clerk has already recorded them as having done so. Maybe a mistake by the polling clerk, but more likely personation. Tendered ballots only show the ones where it’s discovered.
The problem with UK voter D is the restricted number of means of proving ID. Here in Greece, you can even use an expired passport or residents’ card.
Postal voting is open to manipulation. Some European countries use a moving ballot box. People who can’t vote in person are visited by electoral staff to cast their vote. Sometimes, party supporters can accompany the moving ballot box to ensure it’s done right.
Please stop pretending there isn’t personation, there is and we have lost, or not gained seats because of it.
Start a campaign for a much wider range of identification and clean up postal voting.
The data that has emerged from authorities that have published their figures suggests that the effect is far from even. 767 people denied a vote in Walsall, 589 in Manchester and 498 in Bradford. Whereas in Stratford on Avon it was 12, Test Valley 14 and the teeming metropolis of Rutland, 7. Some councils have released ward figures and they show the same trend – much higher refusal rates in multi ethnic, inner city wards than in suburbia or rural areas. Tunbridge Wells had just 40 even though they didn’t utilise ‘Greeters. Urban areas that did use them still had many more people turned away by poll clerks, admittedly covering more voters.
But it’s all probably the tip of an iceberg and maybe, whisper it softly, JRM is actually right. One opinion poll has claimed that 15% of potential Labour voters were deterred even from.going to a polling station because of the new rules. For the Tories it was 22%. Both of those figures seem massively too high to be accurate but it could be an indication that the Tories spooked their own base rather than of their opponents.
Voter ID has been required for many years in Northern Ireland. I wonder if anyone has any information about how it has bedded in and whether anyone is now deterred from voting because of it?
The more general issue is that voter ID repesents a further measure to make it harder for people to vote. In a fully functioning democracy voting should be as easy and simple as possible. So voter ID fits with voter registration in suppressing turnout. The people of N. Ireland are presumably long suffering and tolerate these impediments. I doubt many in England at least will be as tolerant.