Labour has said it may prove impossible to know how many people are turned away at next week’s local elections for not having identity documents, after it emerged that officials outside polling stations will not be making a count of those unable to vote.
While clerks inside polling stations will take a formal register of those who cannot vote because they lack the correct photo ID, some venues will place other staff outside as so-called greeters, who will remind people about the need for ID before they go in.
These greeters will not take a note of the number of people who leave when told about the requirements, the Electoral Commission has confirmed, meaning the total number of potentially disfranchised voters may never be known.
Ten days before the first mass use of voter ID in a UK election outside Northern Ireland, there is also concern about the very low take-up of a free, government-issued document intended to help people excluded because they lack a passport, driving licence or other permitted type of ID.
While government estimates suggest that more than 2 million people around the UK lack up-to-date photo ID, just 55,316 people had applied online for a so-called voter authority certificate as of Sunday, 48 hours before applications close.
The numbers applying from older and younger demographics – those seen as particularly likely to be without the necessary ID – are especially low. Just 2,025 people aged 75-plus applied, and 3,334 aged under 25.
An Electoral Commission spokesperson said the number of applications so far was “lower than we might have expected”. They said: “We don’t yet know if this reflects a smaller number of people wanting to vote in these elections, if people without ID have instead opted to vote by post or proxy, or if there are other reasons for the low application figures. We will look at application levels as part of our post-poll reporting and evaluation of voter ID implementation.”
The commission will collate data collected from returning officers about the number of people refused a ballot paper, why this happened and whether they returned to vote later.
The spokesperson said this data would not be gathered by greeters outside the venue, adding: “The presence of a greeter at a polling station is likely to affect the data recorded at the desk. For this reason, local authorities will need to separate out data for polling stations with and without greeters when submitting data after the polls.”
Charities and other groups have said more vulnerable groups of voters, including older people, transgender voters and those with disabilities, are disproportionately likely to lack the permitted ID.
There is also criticism that the plan is a waste of time and resources targeting a virtually nonexistent problem, with recent statistics showing there was not a single proven case of in-person voter impersonation last year.
Alex Norris, the shadow elections minister, said: “A proper, independent and thorough review of the government’s voter ID scheme is crucial to understanding the true impact of this change. Labour have been clear from the start that the Tories’ voter ID policy is expensive and unnecessary. The government has been far too slow to make voters aware of the new rules, and needs to urgently step up public awareness campaigns.”
Voters in Northern Ireland have needed ID since 1985, but this was introduced because of very localised problems of voter impersonation, related to sectarian groups.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which leads on electoral issues, said: “Councils are required by law to record data to help evaluate the voter identification policy and this data will be published in due course.”
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