Extra polling station staff who have been preparing “for months” to deal with new voter ID rules will be drafted in next month, the Electoral Commission said, amid fears the policy could leave people disenfranchised. The agency’s director of communications, Craig Westwood, said there has been a huge training drive as people navigate the requirement to show photo identification.
The Government’s controversial new policy means that voters must not only be registered to cast a ballot but also take a form of ID such as a passport or driving licence when they head to their local polling station on May 4. Anyone without the correct identification needs to apply for a voter authority certificate (VAC) by April 25.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the change will help ensure voting is a “high-integrity process”, despite no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in the UK. The Local Government Association (LGA) has voiced fears that electoral staff will be “overwhelmed” on polling day as they grapple with “the biggest change to in-person voting in 150 years”. Mr Westwood told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that extensive planning has been undertaken to get councils ready for the challenge in May.
He said: “There will be more staff. Some polling stations, particularly larger ones where there are more people who will be registered in that area, will have greeters – people who are outside the polling station that can just make sure that people are definitely aware of the ID requirement. That they’d got it with them, they’ve got it out of their purse, wallet, bag, and have got it ready, just to make sure that any queues are being eased through.
“The detailed training that the polling station staff have had also helped them to prepare for some of the individual circumstances that they might experience, so somebody from the trans/nonbinary community who is concerned about having their ID seen in public, somebody who’s wearing a religious head dressing that they need to take off in private to be able to prove who they are. So all of those preparations have been put in place.”
Asked whether he was concerned about low numbers of people registering for a VAC as the deadline approaches, Mr Westwood said there is usually a “very significant spike” in last-minute applications. The Electoral Commission conducts surveys after every polling day to evaluate how the operation went, which Mr Westwood said would be “even more pressing” this time in light of the new rules.
The assessment will take into consideration the experiences of voters, administrators, parties, candidates and police. “That will inform us in making recommendations about how the policy can be taken forward,” he said. The Electoral Reform Society has warned that low levels of public awareness about the policy could disenfranchise young voters.
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Willie Sullivan, senior director, told PA: “Allowing bus passes and Oyster cards for older voters but refusing to accept the same forms of ID for young people means that these new rules could disproportionately shut out younger voters from the ballot box.”
Darren Hughes, the group’s chief executive, said: “I think because the awareness of this is so worryingly low, because it has been sort of snuck in, that people on the front line on election day are going to be facing voters who are quite confused. People who are genuinely the person they say they are who either don’t have ID or who have simply forgotten it, being not given a ballot paper. Given that we don’t have this problem of people pretending to be someone else, we really do face creating a much bigger problem here by way of solution than exists in the first place with impersonation concerns.”
Labour has accused the Government of failing in its duties to inform voters of the rules as the application deadline for the special certificates looms.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “The Government has a crucial responsibility to make voters aware of their voter ID policies, but they are clearly failing in their duties. Labour are clear that voter ID is an expensive, unnecessary policy and the wrong priority at the height of a cost of living crisis. If voters don’t have the required photo ID, the easiest way to vote is by signing up for a postal vote.”
Downing Street has said that the rules were aimed at preventing “potential” voter impersonation, rather than dealing with any widespread existing issue. It said only a “very small proportion” of young voters lack the necessary ID to cast their ballot.
“This is to guard against the potential for wrongdoing in this area or voter impersonation,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.
