The impact of voter ID restrictions on some communities in tomorrow’s election could remain hidden due to the way data will be recorded, The MJ has been told.
Under the Elections Act 2022, which details what data should be collected, the Electoral Commission will only require information on the number of people turned away due to a lack of correct ID at council level - rather than for each ward - in its evaluation of the rollout.
One returning officer said: ‘If data is only collected at local authority level it’s going to obscure the differential impact of this legislation.
‘It will clearly mask the impact of this in particular neighbourhoods. It’s possible the impact will be different in areas depending on how deprived they are.
‘The Electoral Commission exercise won’t allow it to understand whether the impact has had an adverse impact on voters in areas of deprivation.’
South Ribble BC has estimated that 6% of the electorate across the borough does not have access to ID, but in some wards it could be as high as 15%.
Cabinet member for finance, Matthew Tomlinson, said the failure to collect ward-level data would hide this variation.
He continued: ‘I represent one of the most deprived wards in the borough and we were finding knocking on doors there are still people with no ID. I’m not convinced at all at the end of this election we will have national data that we can trust.’
Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, Clive Betts, warned that not everyone who turns up without ID will be recorded in the official figures because only those who reach the polling station desk will be counted.
He said there was a ‘clear risk to the credibility of any recorded data and therefore any assessment of the true impact of voter ID on voter turnout’.
Mr Betts also said the lack of ward-level data was ‘really worrying,’ adding: ‘You certainly should have that information to compare the make-up of wards. People have a right to the maximum amount of information at the most local level.’
The Electoral Commission review will also include ‘qualitative research’ and surveys of the public, staff and groups involved with the election.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said voter ID was necessary to ‘keep our democracy secure’ and ‘prevent the potential for voter fraud,’ with the vast majority of voters already owning an accepted form of identification.
