The Conservatives’ manifesto proposal to require ID to cut down on electoral fraud has many on the left worried that the proposal is actually a ruse to decrease the number of Labour voters who are eligible to vote. Are they right?
The first thing to note is that while there is a very small number of electoral malpractice cases – fewer than 100 – some of which count as an electoral fraud, they involve matters unrelated to the wrong people voting at polling stations. The most frequent crime is putting false signatures on nomination papers, after that breaking expenses rules, and lastly making false claims about other candidates.
The most recent high-profile cases of electoral fraud involved false claims about a candidate (Labour’s Phil Woolas against his Liberal Democrat opponent in 2010), postal vote fraud (Birmingham, 2004) and bribery and spiritual influence (Lutfur Rahman, 2014).
In none of the cases would a stronger ID requirement have detected or prevented the crime.
Of course, some people will ask, “but what about the criminals we don’t catch?” The difficulty there is that it’s hard to see where this fraud is taking place. In all those cases, the result itself was a sign something was up. If someone is rigging results, they are doing so in a way that produces outcomes entirely in keeping with national swing and demographic behaviour. Other than the thrill of the chase, it’s not clear why someone would do this.
What we do know from the one part of the United Kingdom that requires voters to produce ID before voting – Northern Ireland – is that it makes it harder for poorer people to vote as they are less likely to have the required identification. That’s why after their pilot, their scheme, introduced in 2002, went hand-in-hand with free ID.
There is, however, a strong argument that elections need to command a high level of public legitimacy, making the case for ID stronger. But there is a wide suite of measures the government could bring in alongside this change that would achieve that while lessening the impact of having an ID. They could, for instance, make it so you are automatically enrolled when you pay council tax, a water bill, a heating bill or any other charge that comes with a fixed abode. They could roll out a free photo ID for elections.
But as they are doing neither, it feels fair to say that at best the government is relaxed about making it harder for supporters of its opponents to vote, and at worst is actively seeking to do so.
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