How Elections Act benefits the Tory party

IN April 2022, the Conservative

Party used its majority in Parliament to pass the Elections Act, which requires voters to show photo ID before being issued a ballot paper to vote in any election.

It is not clear what need there was for this legislation, given that voter fraud is vanishingly small in the UK, but most recent researchers identified that it would be likely to have a detrimental effect on the propensity to vote of groups that history shows are less likely to vote Conservative.

If you are wondering about motivation, you should ponder why acceptable forms of voter ID include discretionary travel passes available to the over-60s but not a 16-25 Railcard. Yougov polling in June 2022 showed that only 5 per cent of voters under the age of 25 planned to vote Conservative.

The Conservatives would benefit most if some of that part of that electorate did not vote.

Now in local council elections additional staff will check if voters have photo ID. They will not record those refused entry to vote.

Some candidates are elected by tiny margins. As would-be voters are being refused entry to the polling booths, these marginal results would be challenged.

There is likely to be a request for a judicial review on the voter ID rules before the next general election.

The right-wing press stated that “the judges were the enemy within”. Ministers treat judges as a challenge to be suppressed: threatening them with legislative oblivion and describing those who fail to do the Government’s bidding as committing, in Rishi Sunak’s words, “judicial recidivism”.

John O’mullane.