The low take up of voter ID registration - a step closer to a being a state where having and showing on demand 'your papers' to the police while going about daily business - is a concern which can only be addressed if local electoral officers employ a team to go door to door with their laptops and ensure/assist every householder to secure ID. Then councils will need to decide which vulnerable adults will lose their care packages, which libraries/other amenities would have to be closed, etc to pay for this - a democratic RIGHT to vote must always come before a social need for services.

If the government were really interested in reducing voter fraud then why are there not measure to ensure that postal voters (which tend to have a greater take up from tory voters) have to show their ID before putting their crosses on the form, putting the form in the envelope and putting the envelope in the post box. There are so many more opportunities for voter fraud: coercion by a householder, wilful; destruction of a voter form by another person, theft of postal ballots by postal workers, etc. All of which cannot happen in a polling station.

There are other issues, of course. How much someone's appearance has changed since a photo was taken, forged ID documents, will people who turn 18 on or near polling day be able to get their proof of ID in time, backlogs in processing (if passport applications are anything to go by), loss/theft of an ID document close to polling day. Polling officers not giving voters the benefit of the doubt if they do not look enough like their photograph.

Another issue is how do voters prove the identity when they ask for proof of identity? If no proof is required, how would that prevent voter fraud?