Ralph Scott, University of Bristol and Ed Fieldhouse, University of Manchester
The 2024 general election was the first in the UK’s history to be run under a system of voter ID. When heading to the polling station, people could only vote if they proved their identity first. This was the result of a law brought in in 2023 and that had already applied to local elections in England that year.
Using data from the British Election Study, we tracked people eligible to vote between 2023 and 2024 and found that 5% of people eligible to vote – nearly 2 million people – didn’t own any recognised voter identification. This lack of ID was concentrated among poorer and less educated voters.
Of course, lacking photographic ID is not necessarily a permanent state. Some people will have been in the process of renewing passports and driving licences during this period. All of these people would also have been eligible for a voter authority certificate, a form of identification brought in with the new law – although we found take up of these was low.
Voters were turned away or just didn’t show up
We found that around 0.5% of all voters reported being turned away at polling stations as a result of lacking ID in the local elections of 2023. We also found that four times as many people (around 2%) reported not voting because they knew they didn’t have the right ID.
The equivalent figures were slightly lower at the general election of 2024, but a meaningful contingent still did not participate. Around 1.3% of electors – or over half a million people – were turned away or didn’t show up at all because of voter identification requirements.
While administrative records can provide accurate numbers about how many people were turned away at the polling station, they tell us little about people who were discouraged from even trying to vote because they didn’t have the right ID. So it is clear from our analysis that the impact of voter ID on turnout is likely larger than previous estimates based on polling station returns.
Who benefits?
We also found that the Conservatives were more likely to benefit from the voter ID law than other parties.
This is not surprising when we consider demographic factors. As our research shows, Conservative voters are more likely to own ID, because they are more likely to be older and more affluent. Despite changes in social patterns of party support since the 2016 Brexit referendum, this pattern still holds true.
The types of identification which are allowed under the new law – and especially the decision to allow older people but not younger people to use travel passes – exacerbates these differences.
Who didn’t have ID?
The chart above shows the percentage lacking photo ID by general election vote intention, as measured in May 2023 (lighter bars) and May 2024 (shaded bars), shortly before the general election was called.
In 2024, only 2.4% of Conservative supporters were likely to not have photo ID, while 3.8% of Labour supporters and 4.1% of Reform supporters were lacking.
One notable difference is an increase in Liberal Democrats and non-voters with no photo identification in 2024, although this is almost entirely due to a change in the number of people supporting the Liberal Democrats or deciding not to vote rather than changes in people’s actual ownership of ID.
Liberal Democrat voters had the lowest proportion of supporters without voter ID in 2023 (1.3%), but in 2024, the Liberal Democrat rate exceeded that of the Conservatives (2.9%).
The government can still improve the situation
There are still opportunities to mitigate the risks posed by voter ID. Ahead of the next election the new government should extend the forms of identification allowed (especially for those younger than state pension age).
Improving public awareness around the law and the availability of voter authority certificates is another important step. There are also suggestions that a system of allowing people to vouch for others who don’t have voter ID would be an option.
In an electorate of 49 million, if almost two million aren’t able to vote because they don’t have the right ID, there is a problem. Those interested in building trust in our democracy should consider not only minimising electoral fraud but reducing this number by as much as possible.
Ralph Scott, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Politics, University of Bristol and Ed Fieldhouse, Professor of Social and Political Science, and Principal Investigator of the British Election Study, University of Manchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
