Like many of the constituents who have contacted me, I am appalled by the government’s proposal to introduce mandatory photo ID for elections. Last year out of the tens of millions of votes cast there were only 28 allegations of voter fraud and only one of these actually led to a conviction. If voter fraud is an issue to be tackled it needs to be based on the facts and proportional to the scope of the issue. The Electoral Commission found that during the voter ID trials last year over 1000 people were unable to vote as they did not have the correct identification.

By introducing a mandatory voter ID requirement, the government is disenfranchising millions of voters. If the government does not provide photo ID free of charge as a part of their proposal, then the 3 and a half million electors who do not have access to photo ID of any kind would be immediately unable to vote. On top of this nearly 11 million citizens do not have a passport or a driver’s license.

I am absolutely opposed to the introduction of voter ID requirements. By proposing mandatory voter ID without supplying free photo ID to everyone registered to vote it is clear that the Government just wants to make it harder for people to vote and to shut down our democracy.