Voter ID

What is voter ID?

Voters must show photo ID in a polling station before being issued with a ballot paper. This also applies to proxy voters (someone voting in person on someone else’s behalf).

The provisions for Great Britain were introduced by Elections Act 2022. Voters in Northern Ireland have been required to show ID when voting in all elections there since 1985, and photo ID since 2003.

Which elections does it apply to?

Voter ID is required for:

• UK Parliament elections
• All other elections in England and Northern Ireland
• Police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales

These requirements to do not apply to elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru and to council elections in Scotland and Wales.

What ID can you use?

The ID voters can use includes passports, full and provisional driving licences, Proof of Age Standards Scheme (PASS) cards, Blue Badges, and some concessionary travel cards. The full list is available on the Electoral Commission website: Accepted forms of photo ID. Voters may request their ID is inspected in private.

The ID used in a polling station must be original, not a photo on someone’s phone or a photocopy. It does not matter if a document has expired, as long as the photo is a good likeness. Digital forms of ID are not currently accepted, except for eVisas.

People without an existing acceptable form of voter ID can apply online or by post for a free Voter Authority Certificate (VAC). The VAC will display the name and a passport style photo of a voter.

Why was voter ID introduced?

Voter ID is meant to prevent personation – the electoral offence of using someone else’s vote.

The Electoral Commission has previously found no evidence that electoral fraud is widespread and that reports of fraud were concentrated in a small number of areas. It also found public perception (PDF) of electoral fraud mainly came from media reports and second-hand information.

The commission also found (PDF) that providing information on electoral processes helped to reduce concerns. However, it recommended in 2014 that voter ID should be extended from Northern Ireland to the whole of the UK, particularly as registration and postal voting had been made more secure but polling station voting had few checks in place to detect fraud. A report by the then government’s Anti-Corruption Champion recommended in 2016 that the government should consider pilot voter ID schemes in Great Britain.

Critics of voter ID say the problem it is designed to solve, personation, is very rare. Only a handful of alleged cases have been reported in the last five years and only two convictions and two cautions. These were in 2021.

What has the impact been?

According to the Electoral Commission voter ID has been introduced in Great Britain with few administrative problems, but administrators have expressed concern about the additional burdens placed on, and the rise in abuse of, polling stations staff.

Awareness of the requirements to bring ID to vote has been high. Awareness of the VACs, for people without any other form of acceptable ID, is low and the number issued is low compared with the number who might need one. Despite over 210,000 applications for VACs before the 2024 general election, only around 26,000 were used.

Changes in turnout at an election cannot be attributed to a single factor.

Some people have been prevented from voting because they lack the correct ID. At least 50,000 voters were initially turned away at polling stations at 2024 general election, with 34,000 returning. This meant 16,000 did not return. The Electoral Commission’s post-election research also found around 4% of people who didn’t vote said this was because of the voter ID requirement but the commission’s research also found negative perceptions of party politics and politicians contribute to people’s decisions not to vote.

The Electoral Commission has said that the impact of the voter ID requirement has not been uniform. Some people are less likely to have one of the acceptable types of ID. The commission says the evidence on which groups were more affected is mixed but the clearest impact is on the lower social grades (C2DE). The commission’s research suggests disabled people and the unemployed had more of a problem trying to produce ID compared to the general population.

Recommendations for change

Although the Labour Party opposed the introduction of voter ID, along with most opposition parties in the previous Parliament, the UK Government has not pledged to scrap the requirements. Labour had a manifesto commitment to ““address the inconsistencies in voter ID rules that prevent legitimate voters from voting”.

In July 2025 the government published its policy paper on elections. The main changes the government want to introduce are:

• Allow bank cards showing the person’s name to be added to the list of acceptable ID
• Allow digital versions of ID to be used as they are added to the gov.uk wallet
• Make VACs available in digital form

The Electoral Commission has welcomed the use of more digital forms of ID but has said “using bank cards as voter ID has risks for security and voter trust.”