Elections Act 2022

Elections Act 2022

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to make provision about the administration and conduct of elections, including provision designed to strengthen the integrity of the electoral process; about overseas electors; about voting and candidacy rights of EU citizens; about the designation of a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission; about the membership of the Speaker's Committee; about the Electoral Commission's functions in relation to criminal proceedings; about financial information to be provided by a political party on applying for registration; for preventing a person being registered as a political party and being a recognised non-party campaigner at the same time; about regulation of expenditure for political purposes; about disqualification of offenders for holding elective offices; about information to be included in electronic campaigning material; and for connected purposes.
Citation	2022 c. 37
Introduced by	Kemi Badenoch, Minister of State for Levelling Up Communities (Commons) Lord True, Minister of State for the Cabinet Office (Lords)
Territorial extent	England and Wales Scotland Northern Ireland
Dates
Royal assent	28 April 2022
Status: Current legislation
History of passage through Parliament
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Elections Act 2022 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

Constitutional documents and events relevant to the status of the United Kingdom and its countries
List per year Treaty of Union 1706 Acts of Union 1707 Succession to the Crown Act 1707 1707 Septennial Act 1716 Wales and Berwick Act 1746 Constitution of Ireland (1782) 1782 Acts of Union 1800 1800 HC (Disqualifications) Act 1801 1801 Reform Act 1832 1832 Scottish Reform Act 1832 1832 Irish Reform Act 1832 1832 Judicial Committee Act 1833 1833 Judicial Committee Act 1843 1843 Judicial Committee Act 1844 1844 Representation of the People Act 1867 1867 Reform Act (Scotland) 1868 1868 Reform Act (Ireland) 1868 1868 Irish Church Act 1869 Royal Titles Act 1876 1876 Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 Reform Act 1884 1884 Interpretation Act 1889 1889 Parliament Act 1911 Aliens Restriction Act 1914 Status of Aliens Act 1914 1914 Government of Ireland Act 1914 1914 Welsh Church Act 1914 Royal Proclamation of 1917 1917 Representation of the People Act 1918 1918 Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 Government of Ireland Act 1920 Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921 Church of Scotland Act 1921 1921 Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 Ireland (Confirm. of Agreement) Act 1925 1925 Balfour Declaration of 1926 1926 Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 Representation of the People Act 1928 1928 Eire (Confirmation of Agreement) Act 1929 1929 Statute of Westminster 1931 HM Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 1936 Regency Act 1937 1937 Regency Act 1943 1943 British Nationality Act 1948 1948 Representation of the People Act 1948 1948 Ireland Act 1949 1949 Statute of the Council of Europe 1949 Parliament Act 1949 1949 Regency Act 1953 1953 Royal Titles Act 1953 1953 European Convention on Human Rights 1953 Interpretation Act (NI) 1954 HC Disqualification Act 1957 1957 Life Peerages Act 1958 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 1962 Peerage Act 1963 Royal Assent Act 1967 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 1968 Immigration Act 1971 EC Treaty of Accession 1972 NI (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972 European Communities Act 1972 Local Government Act 1972 UK joins the European Communities 1973 Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 NI border poll 1973 NI Constitution Act 1973 House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 Referendum Act 1975 EC membership referendum 1975 Interpretation Act 1978 Scotland Act 1978 1978 Wales Act 1978 1978 Scottish devolution referendum 1979 Welsh devolution referendum 1979 British Nationality Act 1981 Representation of the People Act 1983 1983 Representation of the People Act 1985 1985 Single European Act 1985 Maastricht Treaty 1993 Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 Referendums (Scotland & Wales) Act 1997 Scottish devolution referendum 1997 Welsh devolution referendum 1997 Good Friday Agreement 1998 Northern Ireland Act 1998 Government of Wales Act 1998 Human Rights Act 1998 Scotland Act 1998 House of Lords Act 1999 Representation of the People Act 2000 2000 Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 Constitutional Reform Act 2005 Government of Wales Act 2006 2006 Northern Ireland Act 2009 2009 Lisbon Treaty 2009 Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 Parl. Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 Welsh devolution referendum 2011 Alternative Vote referendum 2011 European Union Act 2011 2011 Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 Scotland Act 2012 2012 Succession to the Crown Act 2013 2013 Scottish independence referendum 2014 House of Lords Reform Act 2014 Wales Act 2014 2014 HL (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 Recall of MPs Act 2015 European Union Referendum Act 2015 EU membership referendum 2016 Scotland Act 2016 2016 Wales Act 2017 2017 EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 Invocation of Article 50 2017 European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 EU Withdrawal Act 2019 2019 EU Withdrawal (No. 2) Act 2019 Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 UK leaves the European Union 2020 UK Internal Market Act 2020 EU (Future Relationship) Act 2020 Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 Elections Act 2022
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The Elections Act 2022 (c. 37) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was introduced to the House of Commons in July 2021 and received royal assent on 28 April 2022.^[1] The act makes photo identification compulsory for in-person voting in Great Britain for the first time.^[2][3] Before the act was passed, Northern Ireland had been the only part of the UK to require voter identification. The act also gives the government new powers over the independent elections regulator;^[4] the Electoral Commission has said it is "concerned" about its independence from political influence in the future.^[5][6][7]

According to academic research presented to the House of Commons in 2021, these changes could be expected to result in 1.1 million fewer voters at the subsequent general election due to the photo ID requirement.^[8] Key elements of the act were opposed by parliamentary committees, the House of Lords, the Electoral Commission, devolved governments, and academics.^[6] Changes proposed by the House of Lords were rejected by the House of Commons, dominated by Conservative MPs under the whip of Boris Johnson's government.^[6][9]

The bill for the act was highly contentious. Some opponents said it would hinder certain groups of people from voting, because they were less likely to have photo IDs. The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Wallace described it as a "nefarious piece of legislation" that is "shabby and illiberal".^[10][11] Toby James, a professor of politics and public policy, has said "the inclusiveness of elections has been undermined by the act and it weakens the UK's claim to be a beacon of democracy".^[6] The Labour Party said the Conservatives are "trying to rig the rules of the game to help themselves".^[12] A free voter ID card was introduced for those who did not have other forms of identification.

The bill also changed mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections from a supplementary vote (SV) system to a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, which critics say are an attempt by the ruling Conservative Party to make it easier to win future contests without getting a majority of the total votes, most particularly in London (as a plurality would suffice for a victory).^[13]

Many countries have voter identification laws. Since the passing of the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, photographic identification has been mandatory to vote in elections in Northern Ireland,^[14] which is part of the UK. Other countries with voter ID laws tend to also have compulsory national identity cards, whereas the UK does not (the Labour government of Tony Blair attempted to introduce them, on the legal basis of the Identity Cards Act 2006, but this was abandoned by the subsequent Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government and the act was repealed in 2011).^[6]

The government's research suggests that 9% of voters in Great Britain do not have eligible identification. A lack of eligible identification is more common in individuals who are disabled, unemployed, or without educational qualifications.^[6] In response to this, the government announced that identification which had a photograph in which the likeness was similar would be permissible even if the identification in question had expired, which they stated would reduce the percentage of eligible voters without any form of eligible identification to 4% based on their research.^[15][16]

There is little evidence of serious voter fraud in UK elections. Between 2015 and 2019, during which three general elections were held and 153 million in-person votes cast, only 88 allegations were made of voter fraud.^[17] Between 2010 and 2018, there were just two convictions for voter fraud.^[18]

A voter ID trial was held for the 2018 United Kingdom local elections by the national Conservative government. Voters in five local authorities in England (Bromley, Gosport, Swindon, Watford and Woking) were required to show ID before voting.^[19][20][21] The legal basis for the trial was contested^[22] but upheld in R (on the application of Coughlan) v Minister for the Cabinet Office.^[23]

Another voter ID trial was held in 10 authorities for the 2019 United Kingdom local elections.^[24] Examining Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission evaluations Michela Palese, Research and Policy Officer for the Electoral Reform Society, concluded that mandatory voter ID posed a larger risk to democratic access and equality than the levels of personation at the ballot box.^[25]

Voter ID legislation was part of the 2021 Queen's Speech.^[26]

On 16 January 2023 the Voter Authority Certificate service was launched, allowing UK electors to obtain a free form of photo ID exclusively for voting.^[27] The Electoral Commission also launched a campaign to raise awareness about ID requirements, with public awareness going from 22% in December 2022 to 63% in February 2023 and 76% in April.^[28]

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Notable provisions of the act include:

• Requiring photo identification to vote in-person for general and by-elections to the House of Commons, Police and Crime Commissioner elections and local and mayoral elections in England. Local and devolved elections in Scotland and Wales are not affected.
• Ability for government ministers to provide a "strategy and policy statement", containing government priorities for elections, to the Electoral Commission. Commissioners must have due regard for the statement and publish annual reports explaining what actions they have taken to implement it.
• Changes to the Electoral Commission, including placing it under the supervision of a government minister. It was previously independent of government and accountable directly to parliament.
• Changing mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections from a supplementary vote system to a first-past-the-post one.
• Removing the restriction on British citizens who have been resident overseas for more than 15 consecutive years from voting in UK elections.
• Changes to voter eligibility of EU citizens. EU citizens living in the UK prior to 1 January 2021 will be allowed to vote in future UK local elections. EU citizens arriving in the UK after that date will only be allowed to vote if there is a reciprocal agreement for UK citizens resident in that country.^[29]

Other provisions include extending the current imprint rules onto digital election material,^[30] and tightening spending limits on third parties.

The act was criticised for allowing as voter identification "an Older Person's Bus Pass, an Oyster 60+ Card, a Freedom Pass", while not allowing 18+ student Oyster cards, national railcards, or student ID cards.^[12][31] An amendment in the House of Lords to list these as accepted forms of voter identification was rejected by the Conservative government.^[12] Critics said the list discriminates against younger people, who more often vote Labour; in the 2019 United Kingdom general election 56% of voters aged 18–24 voted Labour whereas 67% of voters aged over 70 voted Conservative, according to polling by YouGov.^[32][12] The Labour Party thus accused the Conservative government of trying to "choose voters".^[12] The government said that these forms of ID were rejected on the grounds that, compared to their equivalents for older citizens, they have less stringent application requirements and so were less secure.^[15]

A column in The National said the real intention is to make it harder to vote for "certain demographic groups which tend not to support the Conservatives". It said that young voters, and ethnic minorities, are more likely not to have photo ID.^[17]

Conversely, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the law had mostly prevented the elderly from voting, arguing that this was a reason for Conservative losses in the 2023 local elections:^[33][34][35]

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. ^[33][36]

Rees-Mogg's comments were criticised by Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, who argued they were an admission that voter ID was introduced to strategically disenfranchise non-Conservative voters.^[37] Conservative MP Danny Kruger argued that Rees-Mogg's comments were in the context of criticising proposals by the Labour Party expand the franchise to 16-year olds and EU citizens, with Kruger suggesting it was meant to be a facetious comparison.^[38] Morgan raised the issue as a point of order in the House of Commons, arguing that it contradicted prior comments by Lee Rowley, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government and Building Safety, before the House on why voter ID was being introduced by the government. Rowley issued an official response to the point of order, stating that Rees-Mogg's comments were irrelevant to the government's motives for introducing the change.^[39]

The government's argument that voter ID should be introduced to lessen public concern about vote fraud (with two-thirds of voters reporting concern about the phenomenon) was criticised by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the grounds that the public tends to exaggerate the problem.^[40] Data from the Electoral Commission shows that of the 1,462 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2019 and 2023, only 10 led to convictions and the police issued 4 cautions.^[41]

Bob Kerslake, former Head of the Home Civil Service, claimed the changes to mayoral and police elections are motivated by a perceived advantage the Conservatives have under first-past-the-post due to vote splitting. Kerslake noted that of the past ten metro mayors, only two have been Conservative.^[18]

The Electoral Commissioners wrote to government ministers urging for the independence of the commission to be retained.^[42] The letter said "it is our firm and shared view that [...] enabling the government to guide the work of the commission is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democracy".^[43] It added that "the Statement has no precedent in the accountability arrangements of electoral commissions in other comparable democracies, such as Canada, Australia or New Zealand."^[42]

Following the passing of the act law firm Mishcon de Reya said that the Strategy and Policy Statement "has created the potential for existing and future Governments to enhance its electoral prospects".^[44]

In an effort to prevent the disenfranchisement of student voters, many of whom are younger, the National Union of Students partnered with CitizenCard to offer a free card with the PASS hologram to students and young people. Cards with the PASS hologram are accepted as a form of voter ID, but many other identification cards held by students and young people, such as Oyster 18+ cards and student cards issued by universities, are not.

Ahead of the May 2023 local elections, it was reported that only 10,000 people had applied for the Voter Authority Certificate, which was just 0.5% of the 2 million people identified as likely lacking any acceptable photo ID.^[45]

A study by the Electoral Commission found that at least 14,000 people had been stopped from voting at polling stations in the 2023 local elections because they lacked the required ID.^[46] It assumed that the real number was a significantly higher than this because around 40% of polling stations had 'greeters' to ensure people trying to vote had the correct ID and all had notices explaining the new rules meaning people who gave up at this point would not have been recorded in the 14,000.^[47] The Commission stated that there were "concerning" signs that voters with disabilities, unemployed people and people from particular ethnic groups could be disproportionately affected by the new ID rules. The Commission also carried out separate polling which found that 4% of people who did not vote did not because of the new ID rules, it estimated that at least 400,000 people could not or chose not to vote due to the new ID rules.^[48]

Ahead of the May 2024 local elections, research carried out by YouGov found that one in seven (or 14%) British people were unaware of the requirement to have an acceptable form of photo ID in order to vote. Outliers included people aged 18 to 24, of which 30% were unaware, and people living in Scotland, of which 34% were unaware, although voter ID is not required in order to vote in Scottish local elections.^[49]

In the 2024 local elections former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government introduced the act, was turned away by staff at his local polling station when he attempted to use a copy of the Prospect magazine as a form of identification. It was reported that he was later permitted to vote when he returned with his driving licence. Additionally, the Conservative MP for Ipswich Tom Hunt misplaced his passport and was forced to ask local Conservative members to find someone to act as an emergency proxy. He later explained that the loss was due to his dyspraxia.^[50][51]

At least one veteran was turned away after attempting to use their veteran's ID card as a form of voter ID. In response, Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer apologised and pledged to have veterans ID cards added to the list of acceptable voter ID.^[52]