Newly announced government rules to require identity checks for postal and proxy voting in UK parliamentary elections are likely to make it harder for older people to take part in elections, a leading charity has warned.
Age UK said the plans, announced quietly via a written statement on Tuesday evening, appeared to be “a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, and said it was concerned the proposals would not have proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Ministers had said they would introduce checks for so-called absentee votes after a parallel plan obliging people to show photo ID when they vote in person, a scheme used on a mass scale for the first time outside Northern Ireland in local elections across England earlier this month.
Setting out details of this for the first time in the written statement, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said people would need to provide a national insurance (NI) number or another form of identity when they applied for a postal or proxy vote, which was not the case before. This would normally be done via an online portal, officials said.
People will also have to renew applications for a postal vote every three years, rather than the current five. Another change will mean people can only cast proxy votes on behalf of a maximum of four people, including a maximum of two UK-based voters. Currently, there is no limit for casting proxy votes on behalf of family members.
The new rules are being introduced as a statutory instrument, a type of secondary legislation that is very rarely subject to parliamentary debate and is usually not even voted on in the Commons.
While an official Electoral Commission report into the effect of in-person voter ID has yet to be published, Age UK said there were plentiful witness accounts of older voters being turned away as they lacked the correct documents.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director, said: “There’s a logic to bringing arrangements for proxy and postal voting into line with those for in-person voting, but this policy still strikes us ‘a sledgehammer to crack a nut’, and one that we’re really concerned will erect additional barriers to older people exercising their democratic right to vote. For this reason we cannot support it.
“Of course, we accept the need to ensure that our voting processes are secure and resistant to fraud, but this new policy, which we note is being introduced through regulations and therefore not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, seems disproportionate.
“Rather than strengthening our democracy our worry is that it will weaken it, if some older people with postal votes find it too hard to submit their ID, or to re-register every three years, and simply give up.”
Local elections in Scotland, and local elections in Wales apart from police and crime commissioner elections, are not in the scope of the proposed new rules.
A spokesperson for DLUHC said the use of an NI number would make the process the same as registering to vote, and that a modernised system would “reduce paperwork for electoral administrators”.
They added: “The government has worked closely with charities and civil society organisations – including those representing older people – throughout the development and planning for implementation of the Elections Act.”
