A new requirement that students, once automatically registered by their schools, register individually is thought to have cut voter turnout in the June referendum on leaving the European Union, also known as “Brexit,” which young people generally opposed.

Mr. Skidmore said that the trial in 2018 was partly intended to see what kinds of proof of identity were best in a country without a national identity card, unlike most of Europe.

It is possible that other proof of address like utility bills or proof of voter registration may be used as well as documents with photographs, like driving licenses and passports.

Mr. Skidmore also rejected the accusation that electoral fraud was associated with any one community, although he said racial and cultural sensitivities might have discouraged the police from earlier investigating the case of Tower Hamlets.

After absentee ballots were made available to any registered voter in 2000 under the prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, there was evidence that some political activists were “harvesting” them from old addresses and filling them out, or collecting them in bulk from some voters.

Voters in Northern Ireland, with a long history of electoral pressure in a divided community, have had identity checks at polling stations since 1985, and since 2002 have had to bring photographic IDs, since other forms of documentation were too easily forged.

The Electoral Reform Society, a lobbying group, criticized the government’s plan as a “sledgehammer to crack a nut,” arguing that voting fraud was not widespread in Britain and that “the government should think very carefully before introducing barriers to voting,” said its chief executive, Katie Ghose.