❓WHAT HAPPENED: A parliamentary by-election (special election) in England on Thursday will be subject to voter ID requirements.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: The British government, the Electoral Commission, and voters in Britain.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Voter ID requirements were introduced by the Elections Act 2022, affecting today’s Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester, England.
💬KEY QUOTE: “At least 50,000 voters were initially turned away at polling stations [during the] 2024 general election, with 34,000 returning. This meant 16,000 did not return.” – House of Commons Library research briefing
🎯IMPACT: Britain’s in-person voting is more secure than America’s although Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party is moving to weaken existing safeguards, and postal (mail-in) voting on-demand remains highly vulnerable.
Voters in the Gorton and Denton constituency (electoral district) in Greater Manchester, England, are heading to the polls for a by-election (special election) to choose a new Member of Parliament (MP), in what is expected to be a tight contest between Matt Goodwin, representing Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, and far-left candidates for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s ruling Labour Party and the Greens. Unlike in the United States, voters will be required to present a valid ID.
The Elections Act 2022 made photo ID compulsory for in-person voting in British Parliament elections and in English and Northern Irish local and regional elections, although Northern Ireland had required photo ID for much longer, with basic ID checks starting in 1985 and photo ID specifically mandated since 2003 to address concerns about electoral fraud. Elections to the Scottish Parliament or the Senedd (Welsh Parliament)—roughly equivalent to U.S. state legislatures—do not have voter ID requirements, nor do most of those countries’ local elections, which are subject to weaker regional regulations set by leftist regional governments.
Acceptable forms of photo ID are broad, including passports, driving licences, and bus passes. The document must be original (not a photocopy or photo on a phone), but it can be expired as long as the photo still resembles the voter reasonably well. For those without a suitable ID, the government provides a free Voter Authority Certificate (VAC), which serves as an alternative form of photo ID. Applications can be made online or through local electoral offices.
Implementation has generally been smooth administratively, with low numbers of people ultimately unable to vote. According to a House of Commons Library research briefing, “At least 50,000 voters were initially turned away at polling stations [during the] 2024 general election, with 34,000 returning. This meant 16,000 did not return.” This suggests the regulations have thwarted some fraudulent voters.
The rules were introduced by the formerly governing Conservative (Tory) Party, with the incumbent Labour Party opposed to them. Labour, under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, now says it will not abolish the ID requirements, but does plan to expand the list of acceptable IDs in the future, potentially including bank cards, which the Electoral Commission has flagged as a safety risk.
As in the United States, mail-in or postal voting on demand remains a significant vulnerability, with historic cases of fraud on an “industrial scale” in Labour-voting Muslim communities. Judge Richard Mawrey QC, sitting as an election commissioner in one case, found that the postal voting system was “wide open to fraud and any would-be political fraudster knows that it’s wide open to fraud,” and would “disgrace a banana republic.”
Notably, Mawrey warned ahead of the 2020 elections in the United States that American mail-in voting has even fewer safeguards than British postal voting and could “easily” be rigged.
There’s a special (by) election in the UK today and guess what?
YOU NEED ID TO VOTE! 😱 https://t.co/4JZQtPIpm0
— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) February 26, 2026
Join Pulse+ to comment below, and receive exclusive e-mail analyses.
