Subscriptions
Read Our Monthly Magazine
And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of being turned away from polling stations over issues with voter ID on July 4th, a human rights organisation has warned.
This General Election is the first to require voter ID, introduced in 2022 under the Conservatives’ Elections Act.
Neither the Conservatives or Labour have pledged to repeal the voter ID law – though the Conservatives have promised to allow former servicemen and women to use their veterans ID cards, following revelations first published in Byline Times about a decorated army veteran being denied a vote. Labour has promised to review the policy, and is likely to add more acceptable IDs to the list.
Sam Grant, advocacy director for the renowned human rights organisation Liberty, told a press conference on Tuesday that due to changes passed in recent years: “We have less of a right to protest, we have less of a right to vote, and it’s harder to take public institutions to court.
Byline Times needs your help to investigate disinformation and electoral exclusion as we head towards the 2024 General Election.
We’re asking for your help to keep track of dodgy campaigning this election, so if you spot anything that bears investigation, please email us at votewatch24@bylinetimes.com.
“There’s a huge risk of disenfranchisement through this policy. In last year’s local elections, four percent of the people who said that they didn’t vote, didn’t vote because of voter ID rules.
“If you extrapolate that up, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people not being able to vote at this general election. And the stories that we saw coming out from the local elections – of older people being turned away, veterans being turned away, Boris Johnson forgetting his ID: these are all things that are going to be very common stories that we see on Election Day,” Grant said.
The four percent figure is from detailed Electoral Commission surveys of voters and non-voters in the 2023 local elections.
There were 47.6 million registrations on the electoral roll in 2020, according to the latest Government figures. Four percent would equate to around 1.9 million people not voting due to the ID rules, and this does not include those turned away at the polling station for a lack of the “right” photo ID.
“Our firm belief is that voter ID is an unnecessary barrier and it’s solving a problem that doesn’t exist. We’ll be pushing parties to reverse this policy,” Grant added.
The Answer, Not the Problem
The warning comes as Liberty, Amnesty International UK, Human Rights Watch, Freedom From Torture and Inclusion London, addressed journalists in Westminster this morning.
The UK’s leading human rights organisations have said human rights provide the solutions to “some of the biggest problems” facing the UK, and should not be viewed as a problem, but the answer to issues like poverty and the cost of living crisis, through guaranteed rights to things like housing and food.
The organisations have called for greater scrutiny of human rights policy in the election campaign period – and politicians pledging to “crack down” on British liberties protected through the Human Rights Act.
The Labour manifesto commits to staying in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which has faced relentless attack from the right of the Conservative party, and parts of the press. Rishi Sunak has branded the European Court of Human Rights a “foreign court”, despite British judges sitting on it and the UK being a driving force behind the organisation after the horrors of World War II.
Gaming the Refs: Watchdogs ‘Captured’ Amid Cuts and Political Pressure – as Lid is Lifted on UK’s ‘Lax’ Regulation Regime
Report exposes over 100,000 cases of corporate wrongdoing since 2010, with rule-breakers often given just a slap on the wrist
The Conservative manifesto says the party would prioritise “security” over ECHR membership if “forced to choose”. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party pledges to leave the ECHR altogether, which would throw Britain’s trade deal with the EU, the Good Friday Agreement – and many other treaties which rely on Britain adhering to human rights standards – into chaos
The human rights groups warn that politicians are not being challenged enough on the implications, from trade agreements to the UK’s international standing, and the rights of UK residents.
Attendees heard that the UK has been “turning away” from its traditional role as a global leader on human rights and refugee protection. The Rwanda refugee deportation scheme and other anti-refugee policies mark a retreat from the post-Holocaust consensus on refugee rights, Sonya Sceats, Chief Executive of Freedom from Torture noted.
Immediate Test
Labour faces an immediate key first test on human rights if elected next month.
As Adam Bienkov reported in May, the High Court recently ruled that Rishi Sunak’s anti-protest regulations have unlawfully put peaceful protesters at serious and unfair risk of prosecution.
The court “agreed with a challenge by Liberty claiming that the Government had unlawfully extended the definition of protests which cause ‘serious disruption’ in the legislation to cover protests which had merely caused normal levels of disruption.
This had led to a “substantially increased exposure to criminal sanctions on the part of protestors exercising their civil rights,” the High Court found.