An Act to make provision about the administration and conduct of elections, including provision designed to strengthen the integrity of the electoral process; about overseas electors; about voting and candidacy rights of EU citizens; about the designation of a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission; about the membership of the Speaker's Committee; about the Electoral Commission's functions in relation to criminal proceedings; about financial information to be provided by a political party on applying for registration; for preventing a person being registered as a political party and being a recognised non-party campaigner at the same time; about regulation of expenditure for political purposes; about disqualification of offenders for holding elective offices; about information to be included in electronic campaigning material; and for connected purposes.
According to academic research presented to the House of Commons, these changes may result in 1.1 million fewer voters at the next general election due to the photo ID requirement.[8] Key elements of the Act were opposed by parliamentary committees, the House of Lords, the Electoral Commission, devolved governments, and academics.[6] Changes proposed by the House of Lords were rejected by the House of Commons, dominated by Conservative MPs under the whip of Boris Johnson's government.[6][9]
The bill is highly contentious. Some opponents said it would hinder certain groups of people from voting, because they were less likely to have photo IDs. The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Wallace described it as a "nefarious piece of legislation" that is "shabby and illiberal".[10][11]Toby James, a professor of politics and public policy, has said "the inclusiveness of elections has been undermined by the act and it weakens the UK's claim to be a beacon of democracy".[6] The Labour Party said the Conservatives are "trying to rig the rules of the game to help themselves".[12] A free voter ID card was introduced for those who did not have other forms of identification.
The bill also changed mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections from a supplementary vote (SV) system to a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, which critics say are an attempt by the ruling Conservative Party to make it easier to win future contests without getting a majority of the total votes, most particularly in London.[13]
Background
Many countries have voter identification laws. Since the passing of the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, photographic identification has been mandatory to vote in elections in Northern Ireland,[14] which is part of the UK. Other countries with voter ID laws tend to also have compulsory national identity cards, whereas the UK does not (the Labour government of Tony Blair attempted to introduce them, on the legal basis of the Identity Cards Act 2006, but this was abandoned by the subsequent Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government and the Act was repealed in 2011).[6]
The government's research suggests that 9% of voters in Great Britain do not have eligible identification. A lack of eligible identification is more common in individuals who are disabled, unemployed, or without educational qualifications.[6] In response to this, the government announced that identification which had a photograph in which the likeness was similar would be permissible even if the identification in question had expired, which they stated would reduce the percentage of eligible voters without any form of eligible identification to 4% based on their research.[15][16]
There is little evidence of serious voter fraud in UK elections. Between 2015 and 2019, during which three general elections were held and 153 million in-person votes cast, only 88 allegations were made of voter fraud.[17] Between 2010 and 2018, there were just two convictions for voter fraud.[18]
Another voter ID trial was held in 10 authorities for the 2019 United Kingdom local elections.[24] Examining Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission evaluations Michela Palese, Research and Policy Officer for the Electoral Reform Society, concluded that mandatory voter ID posed a larger risk to democratic access and equality than the levels of personation at the ballot box.[25]
On 16 January 2023 the Voter Authority Certificate service was launched, allowing UK electors to obtain a free form of photo ID exclusively for voting.[27] The Electoral Commission also launched a campaign to raise awareness about ID requirements, with public awareness going from 22% in December 2022 to 63% in February 2023 and 76% in April.[28]
Provisions
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Notable provisions of the act include:
Requiring photo identification to vote in-person.
Ability for government ministers to provide a "strategy and policy statement", containing government priorities for elections, to the Electoral Commission. Commissioners must have due regard for the statement and publish annual reports explaining what actions they have taken to implement it.
Changes to the Electoral Commission, including placing it under the supervision of a government minister. It was previously independent of government and accountable directly to parliament.
Removing the restriction on British citizens who have been resident overseas for more than 15 consecutive years from voting in UK elections.
Changes to voter eligibility of EU citizens. EU citizens living in the UK prior to 1 January 2021 will be allowed to vote in future UK local elections. EU citizens arriving in the UK after that date will only be allowed to vote if there is a reciprocal agreement for UK citizens resident in that country.[29]
Other provisions include extending the current imprint rules onto digital election material,[30] and tightening spending limits on third parties.
Criticism
The act was criticised for allowing as voter identification "an Older Person's Bus Pass, an Oyster 60+ Card, a Freedom Pass", while not allowing 18+ student Oyster cards, national railcards, or student ID cards.[12][31] An amendment in the House of Lords to list these as accepted forms of voter identification was rejected by the Conservative government.[12] Critics said the list discriminates against younger people, who more often vote Labour; in the 2019 United Kingdom general election 56% of voters aged 18–24 voted Labour whereas 67% of voters aged over 70 voted Conservative, according to polling by YouGov.[32][12] The Labour Party thus accused the Conservative government of trying to "choose voters".[12] The government said that these forms of ID were rejected on the grounds that, compared to their equivalents for older citizens, they have less stringent application requirements and so were less secure.[33]
A column in The National said the real intention is to make it harder to vote for "certain demographic groups which tend not to support the Conservatives". It said that young voters, and ethnic minorities, are more likely not to have photo ID.[17]
Conversely, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the law had mostly prevented the elderly from voting, arguing that this was a reason for Conservative losses in the 2023 local elections:[34][35][36]
"Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding 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."
[37][38]
Rees-Mogg's comments were criticised by Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, who argued they were an admission that voter ID was introduced to strategically disenfranchise non-Conservative voters.[39] Conservative MP Danny Kruger argued that Rees-Mogg's comments were in the context of criticising proposals by the Labour Party expand the franchise to 16-year olds and EU citizens, with Kruger suggesting it was meant to be a facetious comparison.[40] Morgan raised the issue as a point of order in the House of Commons, arguing that it contradicted prior comments by Lee Rowley, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government and Building Safety, before the House on why voter ID was being introduced by the government. Rowley issued an official response to the point of order, stating that Rees-Mogg's comments were irrelevant to the government's motives for introducing the change.[41]
The government's argument that voter ID should be introduced to lessen public concern about vote fraud (with two-thirds of voters reporting concern about the phenomenon) was criticised by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the grounds that the public tends to exaggerate the problem.[42]
Bob Kerslake, former Head of the Home Civil Service, claimed the changes to mayoral and police elections are motivated by a perceived advantage the Conservatives have under first-past-the-post due to vote splitting. Kerslake noted that of the past ten metro mayors, only two have been Conservative.[18]
The Electoral Commissioners wrote to government ministers urging for the independence of the commission to be retained.[43] The letter said "it is our firm and shared view that [...] enabling the government to guide the work of the commission is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democracy".[44] It added that "the Statement has no precedent in the accountability arrangements of electoral commissions in other comparable democracies, such as Canada, Australia or New Zealand."[43]
Following the passing of the Act law firm Mishcon de Reya said that the Strategy and Policy Statement "has created the potential for existing and future Governments to enhance its electoral prospects."[45]
Impact
A study by the Electoral Commission found that at least 14,000 people had been stopped from voting at polling stations in May 2023's local elections because they lacked the required ID.[46] It assumed that the real number was a significantly higher than this because around 40% of polling stations had 'greeters' to ensure people trying to vote had the correct ID and all had notices explaining the new rules meaning people who gave up at this point would not have been recorded in the 14,000.[47] The Commission stated that there were “concerning” signs that voters with disabilities, unemployed people and people from particular ethnic groups could be disproportionately affected by the new ID rules. The Commission also carried out separate polling which found that 4% of people who did not vote did not because of the new ID rules, it estimated that at least 400,000 people could not or chose not to vote due to the new ID rules.[48]
References
^"Elections Bill". Parliament of the United Kingdom. 5 July 2021. p. 1. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
