None of the five English boroughs taking part in a controversial trial of compulsory voter ID in local elections on Thursday has experienced a single instance of polling station impersonation in the past decade.



Four boroughs told the Guardian they had no record of any offences, while one had a single allegation in 2006, which was dealt with by a police caution.



It emerged after the Electoral Reform Society said the plan was deeply flawed and appeared a “calculated effort by the government to make voting harder for some citizens”.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the government about the potential discriminatory impact of the trial, which charities have said risks disenfranchising more vulnerable people, such as older voters and the homeless.

On 3 May, voters in Bromley, Woking and Gosport will have to show photo ID, or two items showing their address from a list of approved documents. Those in Watford and Swindon must bring their polling cards, while there are separate tests connected to postal votes.



The trial, introduced by the Cabinet Office, could lead to voter ID being extended across the country for future elections.

Cat Smith, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, told MPs the government was implementing a similar “hostile environment” for minority groups as that experienced by Windrush-era migrants.

She said: “The Windrush scandal has demonstrated that it is difficult for some communities to provide official papers, which could prevent legitimate voters from taking part in our democratic process.”

Chloe Smith, a junior Cabinet Office minister, said she had been in contact with the boroughs to ensure voters received help.

“We already ask that people prove who they are in order to claim benefits, to rent a car, or even to collect a parcel from the Post Office, so this is a proportionate and reasonable approach,” she said.

Of the councils, Woking said it had a record of one claim of voter impersonation in 2006, and the others said they had never experienced it, to their knowledge.



Nationally from 2010-16, spanning two general elections and the EU referendum, there were 146 allegations of what is officially known as voter personation. Seven people were convicted; five in a single case in Derby.

Stuart Wilks-Heeg, an expert on electoral integrity at the University of Manchester, said the voter ID trial seemed to be “a solution in search of a problem”.



It had been identified as an issue in about a dozen local authority areas, and usually then in one or two wards, he said. “It’s extraordinarily localised and hardly any of the cases that we know about have involved personation at polling stations. They overwhelmingly involved postal or proxy votes. So it is slightly mystifying that they’ve gone down this route.”

Advocates of the change note that voter ID has been compulsory in Northern Ireland since 1985. However, Wilks-Heeg said the measure was introduced in response to highly organised attempts to rig votes, in which some people voted dozens of times a day in a succession of different outfits and even wigs.



Asked about the tiny number of cases during the urgent question, Smith said the problem was “a perception of electoral fraud” rather than how widespread it actually was.

In Bromley, the charity Latch, which pairs homeless people with local householders with a spare room, has expressed concern. “Whether people are rough sleepers or hidden homeless, some won’t have ID, or their documents will kept somewhere they don’t have access to any more, like a friend’s house or with a parent,” a spokeswoman said. “Or else they’ve just lost them.”

Angela Wilkins, the leader of Bromley’s opposition Labour group, said the party had calculated that about 19,000 residents were likely to not possess the necessary documents. “That’s a lot of people – a ward and a half,” she said. “And for some of these wards the margins are quite small.”



Bromley council said each household had been sent five separate cards or leaflets detailing the plans, and that it had liaised with about 500 community groups. But Wilkins said there were many people who were not clear about the change.

“What worries me most is the people who turn up, who perhaps haven’t grasped the detail of this, and the potential for arguments when they’re not allowed to vote,” she said.