Elections must be free of voter fraud

The below letter was first published in Financial Times’ Wednesday 19th May 2021 edition.

A recent piece on the government’s voter identification plans was both damaging and misleading, referring to outdated statistics and omitting key policy detail.

The most up-to-date published research shows that 98 per cent of electors already own one of the broad range of documents that will be accepted in order to vote. For those who identified as being from a nonwhite ethnic minority, the percentage who owned an appropriate document rose to 99 per cent.

Previous research, which only included driving licences and passports, does not account for the breadth of documents that will be accepted in order to prove your identity. Legislation will make clear that a “voter card” must be provided by local authorities free of charge to anyone who needs it.

Photo identification has been operated successfully in Northern Ireland since 2003, when introduced by the government of the time.

Stealing someone’s vote is stealing their voice. Voter fraud is a crime that we cannot allow room for, so this government is stamping out any potential for it to take place in our elections.