Written evidence submitted by the Local Government Information Unit [ELR 011]

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The LGIU - Local Government Information Unit - is a not-for-profit, non-partisan membership organisation. We are for local government and anyone with an interest in local democracy and finding local solutions to the challenges that we all face. Our resources, innovative research and connections are relied on by colleagues across the globe.

Our Local Democracy Research Centre, funded by the JRSST-CT, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust's connected charity, is researching the implementation of voter identification in the May 2023 English local elections. By surveying and interviewing electoral administrators from the ~230 local authorities that held elections in 2023, we are building a picture of how the policy worked ‘from the inside’ and the experiences of those directly responsible for its implementation.[1] The results provided here are from the first stage of our research, and represent the most prevalent findings at this point. A full report of our findings is due to be released in September.

1.0 How have the changes introduced by the Elections Act 2022 impacted on electoral registration officers? For example, has this introduced additional administrative burdens on EROs specifically, or local authorities more generally?

1.1 The impact on electoral administrators

As has been noted in other research, many electoral administrators report experiencing high levels of stress during elections – the short timetables, complicated legislation, and limited resources, combined with running a no-fail service in the public eye, has led to a situation where small groups of administrators are under intense pressure at every election.[2]

Our research suggests that electoral administrators view the introduction of voter ID as a significant additional burden. In our survey carried out shortly after the election, 95% of respondents agreed that working on elections is stressful, and 96% that elections staff are overworked during elections. Coupled with this, 88% said that the elections in May were more difficult to organise than other elections they had worked on, and 77% that they were more stressful.

These findings were reflected in our interviews, where one senior electoral official said that the delivery of elections was dependent on the ‘goodwill’ of elections staff, and commented that ‘[i]f people in the core elections teams decided to work, only their contracted hours [...] and not put in any overtime or any time in lieu, or anything like that, the election won't get delivered is what it boils down [to].’[3]

It is our contention that no essential local service should only be deliverable based on the goodwill of staff. Our research demonstrates that electoral services staff, already under strain, have had significant additional burdens placed upon them by the introduction of voter ID, and that these additional burdens are likely to be exacerbated in a general election. Sections 1.2-1.5 will examine in more detail the exact mechanisms by which electoral administrators’ roles were made more difficult by the introduction of voter identification in polling stations.

1.2 Staffing polling stations

One of the greatest challenges electoral services staff reported after the May elections was the recruitment and retention of staff to work in polling stations. In our survey, 88% of respondents said that recruiting polling station staff was a problem, and 83% said that the introduction of voter ID had made recruiting or retaining polling station staff more difficult.

In our interviews, administrators mentioned that recruiting polling station staff had become more difficult during the pandemic, and that the introduction of voter ID had increased this difficulty. Experienced members of staff are deciding to not work on elections because of the increased complexity of their role. As one senior electoral administrator from a district council put it:

We had more dropouts of experienced staff than we have ever had… There were people who had done it for many years though and that said outright at the beginning: ‘we're not interested in the extra responsibility of this’.[4]

1.3 Booking polling stations

In our survey, 68% of electoral administrators said that they viewed finding and booking adequate polling stations as a problem. According to our evidence the scale of this problem was not significantly increased by the introduction of voter ID at these elections. Around 80% of electoral administrators said that the difficulty of finding and booking polling stations had not changed because of voter ID.

However, in the interviews staff raised concerns about how to ensure the polling stations they use could comply with the new requirement to provide a private space for checking identification, in a situation where their choice of venues is already limited.[5] Other administrators mentioned schools’ reluctance to close on polling day – especially in the context of recent strike action – or the closure of community buildings, as other reasons why the supply of polling stations is becoming more restricted.[6]

An open question on booking polling stations is whether the existing challenges will be made more difficult in the event of a general election, where the number of people voting is usually higher and the timetable for delivery can be significantly shorter if the election is called without much notice in advance. If there are more problems finding and booking polling stations, what alternative arrangements are available?

1.4 The election timetable

The election timetable has been recognised as a significant burden on electoral administrators for years, especially in areas where different electoral timetables clash, or when an election is unscheduled, such as a snap general election.[7] In our research 67% of electoral administrators answered that the statutory timetable for delivering elections was a problem, but an even higher 93% believed that the challenge of organising a snap election was. Suggesting that when an election is scheduled there is already a consensus that election timetables are too short, but that this is amplified in the case of an unscheduled election.

The Elections Act (2022) introduced several new pressures on an already tight and complicated timetable. These included the processing of Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) applications, and the additional training for polling station staff. In general, any additional burden on staff is exacerbated by the short timetable for delivering elections. The problems with staff working significant additional hours have been covered in section 1.1.

During these local elections, the number of VAC applications was significantly lower than anticipated, meaning that the predicted problems with completing applications in time for the election did not materialise. In our survey, 96% of administrators said they had enough time to process their VAC applications. However, during a general election, especially one called without significant warning, where VAC applications are likely to be higher, and electoral administrators have to contend with additional administrative burdens, such as providing for overseas electors, there is still a serious possibility that administrators will not have the required time to complete every statutory task.

As one administrator put it:

I don't actually think we've really tested the full impact. I could see this with a parliamentary election, doubling, tripling, our work. But, you know, applications for a Voter Authority Certificates were a trickle. There were just things that we expected were going to go wildly out of control that didn't, but we can't say that it's because the system was good and that's why they didn't impact us so badly.[8]

1.5 Complex electoral law

The complexity of election law is widely regarded by administrators as causing significant problems for elections – in our survey 78% of administrators considered it a problem. A 2020 Law Commission report described electoral legislation as ‘complex, voluminous and fragmented.’[9] In 2021, the Association of Electoral Administrators went so far as to say that ‘[e]lections are often delivered in spite of rather than because of the fragmented and outdated legislative framework.’[10]

There is evidence to suggest that the Elections Act (2022) has increased the complexity of election law further, in a way that has exacerbated existing issues with implementation. Administrators reported that compliance was made more difficult because of irregularities in the new legislation, including a reported ‘flaw in the legislation’ – where emergency proxies could be used to avoid presenting ID at a polling station, and unusual artefacts which required additional attention for administrators to understand, but were rarely applied for, such as Temporary Voter Authority Certificates.[11] 

The primary difficulty administrators raised that was caused by the particular legislative composition of the Elections Act (2022) was with the lateness of the secondary legislation when compared to the time required to ensure compliance.[12] This, in turn, delayed the production of guidance by the Electoral Commission until after February, only a few months before the election.[13] As one administrator put it:

‘we were doing some jobs so late down the line because we were just waiting for the right guidance, waiting for resources to come through. You know, a lot of the things that we would have done, we could have done two months before if we'd have had that.’[14]

1.6 Communicating election rules

Another significant issue caused by the legislation in the Elections Act (2022) was the increased difficulty of communicating election rules to the public. In our survey, 85% of administrators said that the voter ID requirements had increased the difficulty of communicating election rules to the public, and throughout our interviews electoral administrators spoke about the additional efforts they had put in at a local level to ensure that as many electors as possible were aware of this change. The element of this legislation most frequently mentioned as causing a problem for electors was the list of acceptable identification, where electors expected to be able to use various unsanctioned forms of ID, such as NHS cards and firearms licences.[15] 

There was also a prevalent theme in the evidence we collected suggesting that the complications of communicating election rules would be exacerbated in a general election. Turnout in local elections is low, and as a consequence those turning out to vote were seen by administrators as unusually politically engaged, and therefore more likely to know about election rules.[16] It is also worth noting that our research only focussed on electoral administrators in England, and there are likely to be additional complications with communicating elections rules in Wales and Scotland where not all elections will require voter identification.[17]

2.0 The impact on the public

Although our research is focussed on electoral administrators, their proximity to the public when they engage with electoral processes gives them valuable insight into how the public have responded to the voter ID measures.

In our survey, 75% of administrators said they had heard complaints about the voter ID requirements, although the severity of these complaints differed significantly between different electoral administrators. Our research suggests that only 17% of electoral administrators experienced disturbances at their polling stations during the May 2023 elections. However, it is difficult to know at this stage in the research what the ‘normal’ level of disturbances is, and whether 17% constitutes a significant problem – or indeed what these disturbances consisted of and whether they were manageable at these elections or will be manageable at future elections.

It is worth pointing out at this stage that 84% of administrators in our survey saw low voter turnout as a problem, and that 37% saw barriers to participation for minority groups as a problem. It is not possible to conclude on whether either of these are exacerbated by voter ID at this stage in the research. A majority of electoral administrators suggested that these elections were roughly as inclusive as other elections they had worked on, but 42% believed that some groups found it harder than others to vote because of the ID requirements. Further research is necessary to understand the divided observations of electoral administrators on this topic.

3.0 Resources

It is worth noting that the changes introduced in the Elections Act (2022) introduce additional costs. Our research demonstrates that 83% of electoral services officials see the insufficient funding of electoral services departments as a problem for elections. In general, the consequences of this shortage were usually described by electoral administrators as resulting in their small teams taking on additional hours throughout the election timetable.

The introduction of voter identification has increased the cost of running elections. 83% of electoral administrators said they had committed additional resources because of the voter ID requirements. Eighty eight per cent of electoral administrators said they had adequate resources for implementing the new requirement. This suggests that this new burden was not, on this occasion, insurmountable. However, the proportion of staff saying they are overworked during elections (96%) and the reports in interviews of electoral administrators working hundreds of hours of overtime suggest a system with significant resource constraints.[18]

It is also worth noting that in our interviews, electoral administrators indicated that the resources they were short of were not necessarily financial resources. In one interview, an electoral administrator spoke about how what they lacked was specialist permanent elections staff:

‘You know, we don't need money. I need people with experience and I need people with time.’[19]

More attention should be paid to the short-term and  long-term resourcing of electoral services, including the training and retention of permanent elections staff.

Given the context of this inquiry into voter registration, it is also worth noting that a number of the burdens associated with electoral registration may be exacerbated by the introduction of new processes associated with voter identification. In particular, the evidence we have collected suggests that applications for the Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) will be event-led in the same way as registration applications, and could have similar issues with duplicate applications.[20] Electoral administrators raised that this could be a significant problem year-on-year:

‘Because again with the forthcoming general election I don’t know how many people who have had a VAC this time around will still have the VAC that they had then, because it really is just a piece of paper.’[21]

This could, in turn, lead to significant wasted time and resources in the same way as has been observed for registration.[22]

Additional questions and further research

There are several key areas where we still have questions about the implementation of voter ID, including questions we hope to answer in the later stages of our own research.

●        Do electors across different local authorities receive the same level of service?

●        Which social groups, if any, have been adversely affected by voter ID and what can be done to alleviate any negative effects?

●        What could be done to improve the implementation of voter ID at future elections?

●        How can the experience of staff in these local elections be used to support staff who have not yet had to implement voter ID?

●        What methods can be employed to reduce the challenges of recruiting and retaining polling station staff?

●        What sort of disturbances, if any, were recorded at polling stations?

June 2023