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Could this disproportionately deter Tory voters?
The local elections on May 4 will be the first to be held where every voter will be asked to provide some form of photo ID when seeking to vote at a polling station. Postal voting is not affected.
There is a long list of acceptable forms of ID including a driver’s license, passport and for the elderly, a concession bus pass if they have one.
ID verification will increase the burden on the Polling Officers at the polling station as they will have to do more than check the address before handing over the ballot papers. You can imagine the problems in the final hours of polling when there are often long queues.
The second and more serious problem is that there will be a group of voters who do not have the required ID. If they don’t have the foresight to apply before creating a new voting identity, they could be barred from voting.
What the Tories should worry about is that they could suffer the most from their reliance on older voters – who may find it difficult to have valid ID.
One statistic that stands out here is that nearly 50% of 69-year-olds choose to renew their driver’s license before their 70th birthday when all must renew. So parents are less likely to have it.
My guess is that the oldies are less likely to have a passport even though many of them have a bus pass.
Mike Smithson
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