Should young voters be able to use TfL travelcards for voter ID?

In its wide-ranging review of the 2024 Mayor of London and London Assembly Elections, the London Assembly Elections Review Working Group wants Transport for London (TfL) to provide the Greater London Authority (GLA) with details of how many people hold each of its photo ID cards. As government reviews the list of eligible photo ID, the Working Group has also asked how secure TfL considers the application processes for these cards to be, and the GLA should use this information to advocate for Londoners.

The Working Group found that while photo ID requirements introduced before the elections did not create a “London-wide problem”:

• 5,621 voters were recorded by polling station staff in London as being initially turned away due to lack of photo ID. Of these, 4,103 returned to vote and 1,518 did not.
• Some Londoners believe that the list of acceptable ID is exclusionary for certain demographics, which has the potential to cause damage to people’s engagement in democracy.

The Group welcomed the Government’s review of the list of eligible photo ID and recommends that this should include consideration of groups particularly impacted – including young people, ethnic minority groups and disabled people – and how this policy will interact with government manifesto commitments, such as lowering the voting age to 16.

In its report, the Group also noted that the Government’s Devolution White Paper did not give any detail on plans for the future of the Mayoral voting system. The report urges the government to provide clarity on its position before May 2025 to help election planning for 2028, and to ensure that any changes are lasting and take into account the views of Londoners.

The GLA elections in May 2024 were the first to take place in London since the Elections Act 2022 brought in several changes, including the requirement for voters to bring photo ID to polling stations, the move to a manual count, and introduction of a first past the post system in the Mayoral vote.

Further recommendations include:

• The GLA and Metropolitan Police should conduct a review of abuse and intimidation of candidates at the GLA Elections, setting out how these issues were dealt with and what further lessons it can learn from national and local government.
• The Government should remove the ‘mixing requirement’ for a manual count in GLA Elections legislation to allow for more granular data to be published. 

Chair of the Elections Review Working Group, Len Duvall OBE AM, said:

“The GLA elections are of a different magnitude to all other regional elections in the UK in their size and complexity: nearly 7.5 million ballots were counted in the May 2024 elections, with two different voting systems for administrators to manage across all 32 London Boroughs.

“Considering the extent of the changes made before these elections, it is a huge achievement that they were run as smoothly and as effectively for Londoners as we have found.

“There remain some issues that must be addressed before the next elections are held. The Working Group is concerned by the evidence that Voter ID requirements are having a disproportionate impact on certain groups, and we urge the government to address this in its upcoming review of acceptable forms of ID.

“Londoners also need clarity on the voting system to be used for the next Mayoral elections. The government should swiftly set out its intentions and – crucially – ensure that the public’s views on the proposals are taken into account.”