Johnson launched the Elections Act in 2022 whereas prime minister. Below the act, voters should carry photographic ID to solid their ballots.
The principles have been criticized by advocacy teams and the U.Okay.’s Electoral Fee, the nation’s official election watchdog, which mentioned they may stop a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals from voting in a future normal election.
These individuals, furthermore, usually tend to be poorer, from minority ethnic backgrounds, and disabled, the watchdog mentioned. They’re additionally much less prone to vote for Johnson’s Conservative Social gathering.
The principles are prone to stay in place for the subsequent U.Okay. normal election, anticipated to be held later this yr. The Electoral Fee says the legislation’s disenfranchising impact will very seemingly be higher in a normal election.
Johnson’s fellow Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was additionally a part of the federal government that launched the restriction, admitted in 2023 that the principles had been an try to “gerrymander” future elections for the Conservatives — however that they’d backfired as a result of older individuals, who usually tend to vote Conservative, have been additionally much less seemingly to concentrate on the adjustments.
“We discovered the individuals who didn’t have ID have been aged and so they, by and enormous, voted Conservative,” he mentioned. “So we made it exhausting for our personal voters and we upset a system that labored completely properly.”
Whereas Johnson could also be pushing pension age, he can’t precisely declare ignorance of the adjustments.
