Franchise reform - voter ID

All 'national figures' are extrapolated from percentages from surveys

2024 - number of people possibly stopped from voting due to ID rule

• 400, 000

Rees-Mogg’s claimes about voter ID

• "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."

• New initiative form of 'gerrymandering'

2023 (local elections) - % of voters turned away due to ID issues

• 1.2 - over half from EM backgrounds

2024 ‘More In Common’ - % of surveyed people turned away at least once, group worst affected

• 3.2 - 850, 000 people across the UK

  • More than half did not return or were still unable upon their return

• Minority ethnic (2+x more likely)

Reasons for being turned away (2024)

• 1/3 - no ID that is on list of accepted documents

• ¼ - name different to that on electoral register

• 12% - picture didn’t match appearance

Hope Not Hate - % of voters of colour turned away

• 6.5

Hope Not Hate - % of white voters turned away

• 2.5

Introduction of voter ID (act)

• 2022 Elections Act

Voter authority certificate

• Free document that can serve as acceptable ID for voting when standard IDs are unavailable

• Only issued to 60, 000 people during the GE campaign

% of people that said ID requirements affected their decision to vote and that they then didn’t vote

• 6 (2.8m nationally)

2010-6 - number of cases of voter personation (2 GEs, Brexit referendum)

• 146 allegations

• 7 convictions (5 from one case in Derby)

Acceptable documents old people vs youth

• 6 types of pass for old people, no equivalent ones for young people

Gerrymandering

Redrawing electoral boundaries to advantage a particular party.

September 2023 - Electoral Commission report

• May 2023 local elections

• Voter ID negative impact on participation

• ID requirement accounted for 4% of ballots (nationally - hundreds of thousands of people)

  • Local elections usually voted in by very poltically engaged people who know the rules so the ID supression effect would be higher in a GE

• 2 allegations of in-person voter fraud

2025 - extension of types of ID

• Labour government to extend voter ID to bank cards