Combating voter fraud is a worthy objective. And that is what the government says it is doing by requiring all voters to show photo ID before being allowed to cast their ballot in person from May. Ministers would have us believe this is a landmark reform that will prevent fraudsters from posing as other people in order to cast votes on their behalf.
But voter ID has been described by a wide range of opponents, including election experts, local government representatives and charities representing disenfranchised groups, as a solution in search of a problem, or, in the words of the Electoral Reform Society, “a sledgehammer to crack a nut”. There is very little evidence to suggest that in-person voter fraud is anything other than a minuscule problem. But the introduction of photo ID for all voters in a country without a universal form of photo ID risks disenfranchising significant numbers of the electorate, especially when it has been rushed through without reasonable time to make the transition.
