Hundreds of voters in Norfolk turned away from polling stations due to new Voter ID rules
It's emerged almost 700 voters were turned away from polling stations in Norfolk at the local elections - for not having the right ID
Hundreds of Norfolk voters were turned away from polling stations because they did not have ID at the recent local elections, with almost a third not coming back.
New rules required voters to prove their identity with official photo ID such as a passport or driver’s licence, as part of a government crackdown on electoral fraud.
While the vast majority of people were able to vote without issue, 667 people were turned away from Norfolk’s polling stations on May 4.
Almost a third of them – 233 people – never returned with the correct form of ID.
This far outweighs the number of cases of electoral fraud in the 2022 elections, which led to one court proceeding and one caution.
The figures also come after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory former business secretary, described the photo ID requirement as “gerrymandering”.
Norwich, which has 101,929 eligible voters, saw the most people turned away, with 184 turned around or 0.18pc of the electorate. Of those, 116 returned with ID and cast their vote and 68 did not.
During the campaign, the Conservative Party was forced to apologise after distributing election leaflets in Norwich telling people they did not need to take ID.
Here is how other council areas compared:
South Norfolk – 107 people turned away and 69 came back
West Norfolk – 101 turned away and 64 came back
North Norfolk – 91 turned away and 62 came back
Breckland – 76 turned away and 54 came back
Broadland – 66 turned away and 48 came back
Democracy Volunteers, a group of election observers, carried out snapshot surveys in 118 councils on May 4, finding that around 1.2pc of people were turned away.
Passports, drivers’ licences, proof of age documents, disabled parking badges and certain bus passes were on the list of valid identification to be shown.
‘Gerrymandering’
The ID policy was introduced by the Conservative government last year, with the promise that it would help tackle voter fraud.
This led opponents to argue that the level of fraud is low and that the policy will disenfranchise people who are unaware of the change and do not carry ID.
Now, Conservatives politicians themselves have begun to criticise the scheme, with some suggesting it is the reason for their poor performance at the local elections, where they lost hundreds of seats across England.
Speaking at the National Conservativism Conference, Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.
“We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well.”