Photo ID rules left 82 people unable to vote in Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election

Some 82 people were unable to vote in the recent Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election due to not having the correct photo ID, figures show.

The fiercely fought contest saw the Conservatives hold the north London constituency by a narrow majority of 495, down from 7,210 at the 2019 general election.

Labour had hoped to gain the seat but fell short, taking 44% of the vote, just behind the Tories on 45%.

The contest, which took place on July 20, was one of the first parliamentary by-elections in England where voters had to show a form of photo identification before they were allowed to cast a ballot.

Two other Westminster by-elections held on the same day, in the north Yorkshire seat of Selby & Ainsty and the Somerset constituency of Somerton & Frome, also required voters to show ID.

A total of 255 people were initially turned away from polling stations in Uxbridge & South Ruislip for not having the correct photo identification, according to data released to the PA news agency by Hillingdon council, the local authority that oversaw the election.

Of these, 173 came back later in the day with the correct ID, while 82 did not return.

There were 31,002 votes cast in the by-election, including 77 rejected ballot papers.

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This suggests around 0.3% of voters who went to a polling station intending to cast a ballot were unable to do so, although others may have stayed away entirely in the knowledge they did not have the right ID.

Data for the by-elections in Selby & Ainsty and Somerton & Frome is not yet available.

The figure of 0.3% is broadly in line with a recent report by the Electoral Commission, which estimated that at least 0.25% of people who tried to vote at a polling station in the local council elections in England in May were not issued with a ballot paper because of the ID rules.

Separate data collected by the PA from 225 of the 230 councils that held elections in May shows the rate varied considerably across the country, from below 0.1% in some places to at least 0.9% in a handful of areas including Knowsley, Manchester and Walsall.

Photo ID became compulsory for in-person voting in Britain under the Elections Act of 2022 and was first implemented at the local elections in May.

It has been a requirement for elections in Northern Ireland since 2002.

Types of photo ID that are accepted at polling stations include a passport, driving licence, blue badge and older person’s bus pass.

People who are eligible to vote but who do not have the correct ID are able to apply for a special certificate from their local authority.

The Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election was triggered when its previous MP, former prime minister Boris Johnson, resigned in early June days before a House of Commons cross-party investigation found he had deliberately misled parliament over parties in Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But it was the forthcoming extension to parts of outer London – including Uxbridge – of the ultra low emission zone (Ulez), which sees a fee charged for the most polluting vehicles, rather than the behaviour of Mr Johnson, that became the defining issue of the by-election.

The Ulez extension has been spearheaded the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, while the newly elected Conservative MP for Uxbridge, Steve Tuckwell, made opposition to the extension the centre-piece of his campaign.

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