UK government committee floats digital voting IDs for upcoming elections

As the UK prepares for a tense new round of elections in 2024, the government is trying to handle the controversy surrounding the introduction of mandatory photographic IDs for voting. One of the solutions could be digital voting certificates.

This week, the House of Lords constitution committee pitched the idea as an answer to last year’s scenes, when voters were turned away from polls due to lack of identification.

The UK does not have national identity cards. The country first started mandating voters to show photo ID at polling stations during the May 2023 local elections to eliminate voter fraud. But while the new regime worked well for most people, some parts of the population were left out, especially those from disadvantaged groups.

The constitution committee has found that young, elderly and disabled people, as well as those from ethnic minority backgrounds and of lower socio-economic status, were less likely to own a photo ID accepted at polling stations, committee chair Baroness Jeannie Drake wrote this week in the Local Government Chronicle.

This year, the country is planning to introduce mandatory photo ID for voters for the first time during national elections. Since January, the country has introduced voter authority certificates (VAC) for those without any other form of ID. But the uptake of the certificates has been slow, warns Baroness Drake.

“We also suggested the government explore the possibility of introducing a digital form of the VAC, alongside the existing paper version,” she writes.

The issue may complicate an already potentially chaotic election season.

The Conservative government’s introduction of photo IDs last year has been met with criticism claiming that they were meant to discourage young people and minority group members, who are traditionally more likely to be Labour voters.

Awareness of the new rules is still low this year, meaning that large numbers of voters could be turned away again, potentially sparking accusations of unfairness, according to The Guardian’s deputy political editor Peter Walker.

The Electoral Reform Society estimates that two million potential voters have no biometric ID of any kind. The rules could lead to even lower turnouts for elections and make it harder to recruit polling station staff, critics say.

Some local communities are already campaigning to inform residents about the upcoming changes. Woolwich Library in London has launched an initiative to boost the area’s election turnout and to help locals fill out forms to get ID cards needed to vote.

Aside from voter authority certificates, UK polls currently accept photo IDs such as passports, driving licenses and transport cards.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  elections  |  identity document  |  identity verification  |  UK