Voter ID at British polling stations – learning the right lessons from Northern Ireland
Asking voters to produce a form of identification before voting will be piloted in five English council areas this May. The move represents part of the government’s response to a series of recent recommendations for measures to safeguard the electoral process from fraud. While the pilots will provide important opportunities for policy-learning, Stuart Wilks-Heeg argues that much can already be gleaned from the experience of Northern Ireland, where voter ID was first introduced in 1985.
Polling Station. Picture: Catholic Church England and Wales, via (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
On 3 May 2018, voters at polling stations in five English council districts (Bromley, Gosport, Slough, Watford, and Woking) will be asked for proof of identity. These voter ID pilots are central to the current UK government’s commitment to follow through on recommendations made in electoral fraud reviews carried out by both the UK Electoral Commission and by Eric Pickles in his role as Anti-Corruption Champion.
A solution in search of a problem?
Official concern about the security of the ballot has been driven by a small number of high-profile cases of fraud, most recently Tower Hamlets in 2014. There is no evidence of widespread voter impersonation at polling stations. In fact, cases of ‘personation’, as the offence is termed in UK electoral law, are exceptionally rare. A total of 146 allegations of personation at polling stations were reported to UK police forces from 2010–16, a period that included two general elections and the EU referendum, each of which saw some 30 million votes cast. All but a handful of these 146 allegations resulted in no further action, generally because there was no evidence that an offence had been committed. Over the same time period, only 7 people were convicted as a result of investigations of personation at polling stations, 5 of whom were involved in a single case in Derby.
Given such evidence, academics have expressed concern that voter ID is a solution in search of a problem. Some opposition politicians and political campaigners have gone further, seeing it as a consciously partisan measure. Critics argue that lower-income voters are less likely to have valid ID and will be turned away from polling stations in large numbers, or simply deterred from going to vote at all. In this view, the real purpose of voter ID at polling stations is not to restore public confidence in the electoral process, but to emulate the ‘voter suppression’ methods long practised by Republican states against likely Democrat supporters in the USA.
Vote early, vote often
There is experience much closer to home to draw on. Voter ID has been a requirement in Northern Ireland since 1985, following evidence of a spike in electoral malpractice and claims that up to 20% of Sinn Féin’s votes were fraudulent. At the 1983 UK General Election, 949 tendered ballots were issued at Northern Irish polling stations. These distinctive ballot papers, issued to electors who arrive at polling stations only to be told a vote has already been cast in their name, are not included in the count (they may be considered if there is a legal challenge to the election result). At the same election, Northern Irish police made 149 arrests for personation, resulting in 104 prosecutions. While the numbers of tendered ballots, arrests and prosecutions for personation dropped at subsequent elections, evidence of personation persisted, including cases involving the use of forged medical cards as ID. As a result, the 2002, the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 specified that only particular forms of officially issued forms of photographic ID were acceptable.
From basket case to model
The 2002 legislation was aimed at a specifically Northern Irish problem. Confidence in the integrity of elections in mainland Britain was such that the Representation of the People Act 2000 liberalised postal voting, enabling any registered elector to request a postal vote without justification. Within a few years, allegations of electoral fraud began to mount in England, mostly in metropolitan areas. Ironically, policy-makers now looked to Northern Ireland for solutions. The introduction of individual elector registration in Great Britain after 2009 drew directly on electoral registration reforms in Northern Ireland, also ushered in by the 2002 Act. With the adoption of voter ID in Britain, Northern Ireland has moved from being the UK’s electoral fraud ‘basket case’ to being a model for the promotion of electoral integrity.
After some teething trouble, the experience of voter ID in Northern Ireland has been positive. There were initial political controversies about which forms of ID were legally accepted and which were not. Following the 1985 Northern Ireland local government elections, the first at which ID was required, some politicians claimed that as many as 1 in 10 voters had been turned away from polling stations in some areas. But the controversies diminished with each subsequent election, as political parties and voters adapted to the requirements. There was no evidence to suggest a fall in turnout, but there was plenty of evidence that fraud declined sharply. At the 2005 UK General Election, just 55 tendered ballots were issued in Northern Ireland, a 94% reduction compared to 1983. There has been just one conviction for personation in Northern Ireland since 2002. Meanwhile, public confidence in the integrity of elections in Northern Ireland is up. In the early 2000s, 66% of Northern Irish electors believed electoral fraud was commonplace in some areas. By 2017, the proportion who thought at least some fraud took place was 28%, in line with the rest of the UK.
Postal votes are the weakest link
Nonetheless, it would be naïve to assume that voter ID will address electoral fraud concerns in Great Britain. Electoral fraud was already in decline in Northern Ireland before the 2002 Act, largely due to power-sharing arrangements reducing the incentives to engage in malpractice. Following the recent collapse of the Northern Ireland executive, electoral fraud allegations re-emerged at the 2017 Northern Ireland Assembly elections and the 2017 UK General Election.
But the main reason to be sceptical that voter ID can prevent further instances of electoral fraud in Great Britain is that recent convictions for voting offences have overwhelmingly related to postal votes, not personation at polling stations. Certainly, the absence of voter ID at polling stations is an obvious vulnerability. Fraud could also shift to polling stations as voter registration and postal voting safeguards become more robust. Yet, postal and proxy votes undoubtedly remain the weakest links in the chain. With postal ballots available ‘on demand’, and without legal prohibitions on party representatives handling them, they will continue to be the primary target for those intent on rigging elections.
Recognition of the acute difficulties associated with ensuring the security of postal votes informed the decision not to extend postal voting on demand to Northern Ireland in 2000. Of all the lessons Northern Ireland offers about the promotion of electoral integrity, this is arguably the most important.
This blog represents the views of the author and not Democratic Audit. It was originally published on the Policy@Manchester blog site.
About the author
Stuart Wilks-Heeg is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester, on sabbatical from the University of Liverpool. He is the chair of trustees for Democratic Audit.
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In relation to the few convictions for personation, it should be remembered that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. With low turnouts, the chance of personation can be higher.
Detection of personation is also difficult. Gone are the days when registers were small and polling stations staffed by people who would personally know many of the people on the roll. The chances of someone picking up on personation in the polling station are low.
With individual registration, you can tell that the person on the register is who they claim to be, but you cannot tell if that person is the person who turns up at the station.
Identity fraud, card fraud and cybercrime will be reduced to virtually ZERO globally ONLY if banks implement proposed honesty restoring universal systems.
Identity fraud, card fraud and cybercrime are growing so fast ONLY because we rely on unreliable signature, PIN and password systems to conclude our transactions. These crimes will be STAMPED OUT forever only if we make all these three systems RELIABLE and FOOL PROOF as described below. It is as simple as that.
Smart electronic and digital systems are failing to deter fraud and cybercrime because none of them make signature, PIN and password systems reliable and fool proof. In reality these systems make bad problems worse by 1) diverting crimes to other sectors and 2) provide criminals new loopholes to take advantage of.
Signature system is unreliable because in the event of crime signature does not even expose fraudster’s gender. We should have realised this serious mistake years ago. To make signature reliable all we have to do is to apply our ID sticker (supplied by financial institutions with our photo, name and their logo printed on it) to the document and countersign. This system will make signature system reliable because in the event of crime it will expose fraudster’s identity (photo and traces of thumbprint. Current signature system is like passports without photos and that is why it is so difficult to deter and prosecute fraudsters.
PIN system is unreliable because fraudsters have options to pick them. We should have realised this serious mistake years ago. To make PIN reliable all we have to do is to store PIN on key size thumbprint activated memory stick. This will act like contactless card but reliable because of activation only by thumbprint. Call this electronic pin EPIN. We also have option to change EPIN to different value after each transaction. Fraudsters will not get tempted to do card fraud at retail outlets, ATMs and even online card payment because they will not be able to pick our EPIN the way they pick our PIN. Unlike other bulky devices like mobile phones, these ID key will be safe in our pocket with other keys and so it will not get stolen or damaged. In realty these ID smart key could replace plastic cards and even passport in future.
Password system is unreliable because hackers have options to pick our passwords from our computers, mobile phones etc. We should have realised this serious mistake years ago. If we use our EPIN from memory stick as password then cybercriminals will not be able to pick them the way they do pick our current passwords. Use of EPIN to validate online card payment will combat online card payment fraud too.
To stamp out fraud and cybercrime for ever all financial institutions have to do is to provide ID stickers and EPIN to their customers. This will save them and their customers massive losses and waste off time and agro with police and courts. Licensing fee to implement these systems will cost banks nominal fee per customer per year.
I believe that in future courts will make financial institutions liable for fraud and cybercrime losses for not implementing proposed Fraud and cyber crimes deferring systems. Government should make banks implement proposed systems to stop us becoming victims. For how long can we afford to let these crimes from remaining fastest growing crimes.?
These universal systems will eliminate the need for us to protect our personal details and get fooled by criminals who use fake photo IDs with bogus signatures. Which other systems will stop criminals from using our personal details they already have?
Letting criminals get richer and innocent people get poorer is a serious problem for any government.
If you agree that banks should implement these systems then please forward this information to your banks.
Thank you
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