Demanding ID at polling stations solves a problem that doesn't exist...

"It's about fraud", they cry!! Yet it turns out there isn't any fraud - or at least not the sort of fraud that gets sorted by demanding little old ladies in rural Wiltshire provide ID in order to vote:

Figures from the Electoral Commission show personation fraud at the polling station accounted for eight out of the 266 allegations made last year. No further action was taken for seven of these, and one allegation was resolved locally.

So last year there were precisely zero actual cases of personation fraud - the only sort of fraud that demanding ID solves. If you want to get serious about abuse of elections then you ned to look at:

1. Voter intimidation especially intimidation of women

2. Postal vote farming made possible by automatic rights to a PV

3. Abuse of political selection processes (in all the main parties)

4. Treating and, let's call it, "extreme creativity" around election expenses

One previously huge abuse - false registration - has largely been dealt with through individual registration rules.

None of this is to say that personation doesn't take place (people with experience of campaigning in places like Bradford or Tower Hamlets will tell you it is commonplace - albeit that the evidence for this is more limited). It remains the case that intimidation, treating and postal vote abuse are far more of a problem. The last is easy to deal with - we just return to a system similar to Blair's reforms - but the wide problem of how people campaign is much more difficult to respond to, which is probably why the simple "show ID" proposal - 'look we're doing something' - was taken.

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ID checks are officious, mostly unnecessary, mistrustful and damage community.

When I was a young teenager, my Mum would give me the money to go and buy her some cigarettes - twenty Sovereign. It made sense because the newsagent and tobacconist was a mile away in Elmers End and I was going there on my bike to do a paper round. I'm sure I'm not the only person from my generation who bought cigarettes for their Mum or Dad.

These days, of course, this wouldn't happen. We live in an age of mistrust brought about by the decline of community, by the shopkeeper not knowing who is who in the little local community and, worse, frightened that if he doesn't ID every second customer some official is going to step in, throwing the book. Until a year ago I'd never been asked for any ID except for such things as getting a driving licence or passport (or overseas where they're a lot keener on ID stuff) - certainly not for any purchase, never in a shop or a pub or a bank.

The first demand for ID was in a London hotel. We'd booked, pre-paid and were staying one night - the receptionist requested a photo ID. I didn't have any on me and, after a brief (and smiling) exchange no ID was proffered and none required. It was, however, an indication of our society's mistrust - I could be someone other than the person who'd rung up, booked a hotel, paid for a room on a specified night. Unlikely but you never know...

We've become ID mad - supermarket checkout operators wear little badges telling me that if I look under 25 they'll ask for some proof of age if I try to buy a bewildering range of goods - fags, booze, fireworks, glue, knives, scissors, marches, cigarette lighters, drain cleaner and (so I've been told) large bottles of sugar rich fizzy pop. Operators demand ID to go in a bar, to attend a concert, to conduct a bank transaction - a million-and-one ordinary everyday actions that back when we trusted people were done without this officious rigmarole.

This ever expanding requirement to prove who you are so as to go about an ordinary life isn't a good thing. We're not safer, healthier or happier as a result of having to show some form of ID to a checkout operator or a doorman. Indeed, I've a feeling that this is a transfer of trust from the wisdom and judgement of people to a dumb pice of paper or plastic with a bad photo on it. And that in doing this we undermine community, the idea that nearly everyone, nearly all of the time behaves sensibly and doesn't require some self-appointed agent of the state (usually operating out of fear that not checking people's identity will bring down the wrath of that state) to second guess this truth.

As a conservative, the idea of community and the trust that comes from within that community is central to what we feel about the world. The moment we step away from this and say "don't trust anyone buying a bottle of wine or a packet of twenty fags, they might be lying" we lose a little more of that community. Places should be able to police themselves - they did so from time immemorial until we decided that managing drinking, smoking and such wasn't something we could entrust to a small community but needed national - even international - agencies to insist that the rules are enforced (for the children, naturally).

Today that ultimate measure of a community - going down to the local church hall to cast a vote in an election - is the latest ordinary action that is to be subject to ID checks. We're told this is to combat rising electoral fraud (despite the Electoral Commission repeatedly saying voter fraud is rare) - as they concluded "...there is no evidence to suggest that there have been widespread, systematic attempts to undermine or interfere with recent elections through electoral fraud." And remember that the only fraud ID checks might prevent is personation at the polling station, it doesn't prevent false registration, doesn't stop postal voting abuse, and doesn't halt voter intimidation (all of which are more serious problems).

To get this in context, there were over 50 million ballots issued in 2015 and just 34 cases of personation. There were only 481 allegtions of electoral fraud, two-thirds of which were deemed not to be offences. And we want to get Mrs Jones to produce a photo ID when she goes to the village hall in Lower Puddlebury because 0.0009% of ballots led to an allegation (0.0003% an investigation and less than 0.0001% a conviction) of electoral fraud. Worse, because Mrs Jones doesn't drive and hasn't got a passport, she'll have to go and get a special ID card to vote - all to prevent an almost imaginary problem.

We do too many ID checks. They are officious and mostly unnecessary. As conservatives we should remind those who govern us that trust is central to a good society. And that this constant checking up on people is mistrustful, undermines community and is bad for society.

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Steamrollers for cracking nuts - on demanding ID at polling stations

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The Electoral Commission is suggesting that we should have to show identification in order to vote:

"Looking ahead, the time has come for England, Scotland and Wales to move towards a requirement for voters to produce ID at polling stations. This would strengthen the system and bring Great Britain into line with Northern Ireland and many  countries where this is already in place."

This proposal isn't made because the Electoral Commission has any substantive evidence that personation is a real problem in UK elections merely that there have been lots of complaints and lots of stories about allegations of possible personation (mostly in places with big immigrant populations and especially Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslim populations).

That there is fraud in our elections is a fact that no-one disputes. However, the real problems don't lie with personation but with voter registration and postal voting - yet the Commission refuses to tighten up postal voting systems. Instead we get demands for ID - another example of how we are no longer a place where the default position is to trust someone, to assume he is telling the truth.

In Bradford we get these complaints of personation at every elections. Typically the anecdotes tell of a young campaigner going to houses of people he knows and having a conversation something like this:

"Hi Auntie, where's uncle?" "He's at the mosque."

"Has he voted yet?" "I don't know - his polling card is on the table"

"I'll take it."

The cards are gathered up and handed over to others to vote - "vote early, vote often" as the saying goes.

I suspect that something like this - or variations on it - does happen but that it is less common than the stories make out. What is interesting is that there hasn't been a prosecution for this sort of personation (as far as I know). There have been prosecutions - some successful - for mishandling postal votes and for abuse of voter registration but these are also rare.

This seems to me a proposal more in response to the cries of foul that political parties in some places routinely throw out when they lose elections. We have a small nut in the form of problems in a few places (and these are about allegations of wrongdoing rather than actual evidence of wrongdoing) to which - for its own convenience - the Electoral Commission proposes to employ a large steamroller in the form of requiring ID.

In the end the truth about voting fraud is this - as the Chair of the Electoral Commission says:

"Proven cases of electoral fraud are rare..."

The response should be for local councils and police in areas where there might be a problem not for national legislation. And certainly not for legislation that institutionalises an assumption of mistrust and especially mistrust based on someone being from an immigrant population.

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