Who Lacks Voter Identification? The Electoral Implications of The UK Elections Bill 2021
20 Pages Posted: 23 Nov 2021 Last revised: 14 Dec 2023
Date Written: December 12, 2023
Abstract
The Elections Bill 2022 requires voters to present photo identification at general elections in Great Britain and local elections in England. In this article we use data from the British Election Study Internet Panel to identify who does and who does not own the necessary photo documents and how this affected turnout in the 2023 local elections. This gives us the first reliable indication of the party political impact of the proposed change. We find that some groups are more affected than others, with less educated, poorer, and older voters being more likely to be in voter-identification poverty. The political implications of this are unsurprising: as is usually the case with strict voter identification requirements, we find that opposition party supporters are more likely to lack any valid form of photo identification than Conservative voters.
Keywords: photo identification, turnout, voting laws, electoral administration, electoral rules
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