Misinformation on voter ID could stop people even trying to vote

Misinformation around the new voter ID laws could stop people from taking part in elections, campaigners have warned.

The requirement for photo ID will be in play for the first time at next week’s local elections across England. But a government scheme offering free “voter authority certificates” closed yesterday having received just 85,689 applications – 4.3% of the estimated two million people who don’t have valid photo ID.

There are widespread concerns that voter ID laws could stop marginalised people from voting. Trans, ethnic minority and disabled people were highlighted by MPs on the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) as being among the groups that will be most impacted.

Matteo Bergamini, founder and CEO of Shout Out UK, a campaign group that works in schools and under-represented communities to improve political and media literacy, told openDemocracy that a lack of awareness of the new rules combined with a distrust of authority has led to misinformation. This “creates a very hostile environment to get any information” out of people that could ultimately stop them voting.

“The biggest challenge is [a] lack of knowledge,” he said. “It's one thing going in talking about the changes to electoral law to a politically literate population. It's a whole different ball game when you're dealing from zero in a lot of cases, compounded by the fact that there is a lot of misinformation, distrust and frustration towards anything to do with government and politics at the moment.

“[For] example, the voter authority certificate… was fairly straightforward to apply for. You're not giving away any information to the government because frankly, the government has all this information on you anyway.

“The perception amongst a portion of the population is they don't want to apply for it because they don't want to give the government more power over them. It's a myth. But it's a very powerful myth that will naturally push people away from potentially getting that voter ID certificate, and therefore if they don't have any other form of ID [this] may potentially exclude them from engaging in our democracy.”

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openDemocracyAdam Bychawski

Bergamini warned that the “majority” of people Shout Out UK has recently engaged with were hearing about the new laws “for the first time”. This tallies with a poll last month that found one in four voters don't know they need to take ID to vote.

Drawing parallels with the Covid-19 pandemic, Bergamini said that the biggest barrier while trying to raise awareness on voter ID laws “is… that massive knowledge gap that we've seen with regards to media literacy during the Covid pandemic, when the government struggled to vaccinate a portion of the population”.

“I think we're going to see the gap of political literacy in this country as these laws start to take effect,” he said. “We'll see a large swath of the population really struggle to come to terms with it.”

At the height of the pandemic, it was reported that “structural inequalities and historical medical racism” led to a lack of trust from Black, Asian and ethnic minorities about the Covid-19 vaccine.

Lara Parizotto from Migrant Democracy Project, an organisation that empowers migrants to actively participate in politics told openDemocracy that updates to the Elections Act have “added a layer of change and complexity in understanding who can vote and how to vote”.

“A lot of data already shows that EU and Commonwealth citizens' voter registration rates are lower compared to the British. And that comes down to a lot of complexity in understanding who has the right to vote,” she said.

“In Scotland and Wales, every resident has the right to vote in local elections, but in local elections in England and Northern Ireland, only EU citizens and those in the Commonwealth can vote. Many EU citizens have been under the assumption that with Brexit, they no longer have the right to vote.”

They kind of internalise that they shouldn't participate, or that democracy in the UK is not for them

According to Parizotto, some migrant voters also feel as though they don’t deserve to participate in democratic processes.

She added: “I think it's a consequence of seeing the hostile and negative comments about migrants in the media and from politicians. So they kind of internalise that they shouldn't participate, or that democracy in the UK is not for them.

Parizotto told openDemocracy this is despite migrants being – in her experience – more likely to have a form of ID with them because of “aspects of the hostile environment where you’re always having to prove your right to be here”.

“Migrants have been having to prove their immigration status in various different instances. Such as the right to rent, and see a GP and things like that… Especially those that are here on a visa, they have the biometric residence card, which is acceptable proof of ID,” she continued.

For Parizotto, disenfranchised migrant voters need “cultural and language sensitive approaches [to raising awareness], [so that] people feel like: ‘OK, this is for me, I'm being spoken to. And I've been actively encouraged to participate'.’”

Professor Nitasha Kaul, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at the University of Westminster told openDemocracy there is a lack of awareness of the “once in a generation” change of the rules concerning voter ID, especially among young people.

Commenting on reports this week suggesting the number of people turned away for not having ID won’t be recorded, she added: “As workers outside polling booths will not be able to record the number of people turned away for lack of voter ID, the extent of disenfranchisement will not be publicly clear.

“These worries are not inflated, since only a fraction of those who lack voter ID have applied for the authorisation before the deadline.”

There is a “distressing trend in contemporary British democracy where the distance between citizens and governance is regrettably widened,” she added.

Rob Macmaster, a politics lecturer at the University of Westminster, said there needs to be an audit "of those citizens who were refused their right to vote".

"This is necessary to investigate which age groups and communities were most negatively impacted," he said.

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “The vast majority of voters already own an accepted form of identification and a significant number of people will vote by post.

“The government has also been working closely with local authorities and other partners to raise awareness, including a widespread public information campaign led by the Electoral Commission.”