Tories ‘open’ to charge of bias over voter ID guidelines, election watchdog warns

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The Conservatives have “opened themselves” up to the charge of bias over voter ID guidelines which got here into pressure final yr, the elections watchdog has warned.

Electoral Commission chairman John Pullinger warned that the “very, very tight” guidelines danger excluding sure voter teams at this yr’s basic election.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Pullinger mentioned: “The photo ID requirement is clearly proving more of a barrier to some people than others.”

Rishi Sunak rolled out obligatory photograph ID in Britain forward of the native elections final May, regardless of little proof of voter fraud at polling stations.

Critics raised issues that the transfer might disenfranchise voters, notably these from marginalised communities.

The Electoral Commission mentioned that the requirement to carry photograph ID posed a problem and round 14,000 individuals had been unable to vote in consequence.

Disabled and unemployed individuals had been “more likely than other groups to give a reason related to ID for not voting”, it discovered.

Tory former minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg mentioned the rollout of voter ID was an try at “gerrymandering” that backfired towards the occasion.

He mentioned the coverage had made it tougher for aged Tories to vote and “upset a system that worked perfectly well”.

Mr Sunak’s authorities has constantly denied that bringing in voter ID was an try at “gerrymandering”, however quite is meant to forestall voter fraud and guarantee confidence within the UK’s elections.

In his FT interview, Mr Pullinger mentioned that if a consequence of measures to enhance election safety was disenfranchising sure voter teams then “we should do better”, however he accepted it’s “too late” to make modifications forward of the final election anticipated this autumn.

Labour deputy chief Angela Rayner has described the voter ID coverage as a “barrier to voting”. “No legitimate voter should be locked out of democracy but that has been the effect of the Tories’ failed voter ID regulations,” she has mentioned.

And the Liberal Democrats have pointed to the coverage, claiming voters had been “denied a voice”. “It looks like a transparent attempt at voter suppression by Conservative ministers who are desperate to stop people from holding them to account by any means possible,” native authorities spokesman Helen Morgan mentioned.