Agenda item

This report outlines the Council’s operational response to requirements in the Elections Act 2022 for voters to provide photo identification in polling stations.

Zoe Wilkins (Electoral Services Manager) and Kayode Adewumi (Assistant Director – Democratic, Registration and Coroner’s Services) presented the report which outlined the Council’s operational response to requirements in the Elections Act 2022 for voters to provide photo identification in polling stations.

Zoe Wilkins noted that the first elections to apply the new rules were the local government elections in parts of England in May 2023. She said officers were awaiting the Electoral Commission’s report on why voters were turned away so the Council could mitigate any issues when the rules were applied in the borough. She explained that there was already a robust communication and engagement plan in place, and there would be flyers with voter registration information, a social media campaign, targeted adverts based on the results of the Commission’s report, and further information in the Council Tax and winter booklets. She noted there was some grant funding from the Government for this work, but not all of it had been confirmed.

Kayode Adewumi added that the Elections team were working closely with the Co-production team to look at the accessibility of venues and the communications plan. They were also thinking about other areas to improve to ensure residents could access their right to vote. He said the new burdens on the Council were partly funded by Central Government but there were funding gaps, which meant additional costs for the Council.

Councillor Rowan Ree (Cabinet Member for Finance and Reform) addressed the Board and said the Council would do everything in its power to ensure that everyone who wanted to vote was able to, despite the additional costs to the Council.

Councillor Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler asked how officers verified someone’s identity if they requested a Voter ID certificate. Zoe Wilkins said if they had a National Insurance number, they could check their details on a government portal. If they didn’t have a National Insurance number, then they could accept other forms of ID.

Councillor Brocklebank-Fowler noted that any publicity would be supplemented by pan-London and national coverage, and she felt that very few people would not know about the new requirements. She felt the separate household notification letter was surplus to requirements and overly costly, given that information was already being included with Council Tax letters. She asked the Cabinet Member and officers to reconsider. Zoe Wilkins explained that the items listed in the report was the Election team’s wish-list, and not all of them would be taken forward.

The Chair said the borough had a relatively high turnover of residents and it was important to ensure they didn’t miss out on their right to vote because of a lack of information. Councillor Ree agreed. He said the new rules introduced new barriers to voting which could stop people applying and the Council needed to ensure people were informed.

Councillor Natalia Perez noted that some communities were not officially recognised by the Office of National Statistics, citing the Latin American community as an example. She noted that a recent Greater London Authority (GLA) and YouGov poll showed that 95% of white Londoners were aware of the changes, 82% of Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Londoners were aware, and 76% of European Union (EU) citizens in London were aware. The poll showed that 32% of all Londoners were not aware of the new rules. She was concerned that some communities would be adversely affected and asked what steps had been taken to address the issue.

Zoe Wilkins said the GLA produced elections materials in a wide range of different languages which the team could adapt. They also linked to the Electoral Commission’s website which was available in many languages. Kayode Adewumi said if Councillors were aware of community organisations the team could work with, they could send him the details.

ACTION: Members

Councillor Jacolyn Daly reiterated the importance of democracy and ensuring people weren’t disenfranchised. She noted that there was only a small amount of money earmarked for adverts and questioned how impactful it would be. She felt the challenges were bigger than one team and the problem needed a Council-wide approach. She suggested the PAC Chairs think about how different departments could respond.

ACTION: PAC Chairs

Councillor Daly noted one of the issues at the recent local elections was people who didn’t look like their ID and Elections staff reportedly had little support on the day. She asked officers to consider the learning from that and what support could be put in place.

Zoe Wilkins said she would be doing an all staff briefing in September to ensure officers across the Council were aware of the rule changes. Training was also open to anyone interested in working in polling station or in other capacities. Regarding support for staff in stations, H&F had polling station inspection teams – managers who were trained to support the stations.

Councillor Rory Vaughan asked how the Council could collect statistics from upcoming elections to track performance. He also suggested sampling people across the borough to see if they were aware of the new rules. That could give insights to enable the Council to better target further information. Zoe Wilkins said statistics were collected based on a prescribed form required in polling stations. She hoped the Electoral Commission report would contain actionable lessons, but she said she could discuss sampling with the community engagement team.

The Chair said she thought language would be a bigger problem given the diverse population and asked officers to look at any lessons learned from other larger metropolitan areas like Manchester. She also asked how many people requested a private area for identification checks. Zoe Wilkins said she didn’t think that information had been recorded.

Councillor Nikos Souslous asked how postal voting had changed by the Act. Zoe Wilkins said people would be able to apply for a postal vote online and the Council was due to start testing that soon. Regarding postal vote handling, the Act limited the number of postal votes that could be dropped into stations. Councillor Souslous also raised the issue of station staff not recognising valid forms of identification like Commonwealth Passports. Zoe Wilkins said that was a training issue and said she would try to get samples for training.

Councillor Souslous asked how many people had fraudulently voted in H&F. Zoe Wilkins said the only case she was aware of was from 2005 or 2006, where a man tried to vote twice. He was cautioned by the police.

Councillor Rowan Ree added that the measures put in place by the Act wouldn’t have prevented that issue. He called it a ‘solution in search of a problem’ and believed it was designed to discourage people from voting. He noted that of the 58 million votes cast in 2019, 33 were proved to be fraudulent.

The Chair asked officers to consider the suggestions made at the meeting and work with the co-production team to ensure all of the materials being sent out were accessible.

ACTION: Zoe Wilkins

The Chair asked officers to circulate the Electoral Commission’s report to members once it was published.

ACTION: Zoe Wilkins

RESOLVED

1.    That the Board noted and commented on the report.