Johnson introduced the Electoral Act in 2022 while he was Prime Minister. Voters will have to be brought under the Act Photographic ID To cast your vote.
The rules were criticized by advocacy groups and the UK Electoral Commission, the country’s official election watchdog, which said they could prevent hundreds of thousands of people from voting in a future general election.
In addition, those people are more likely to be poor, come from minority ethnic backgrounds and have a disability, the watchdog said. They are also less likely to vote for Johnson’s Conservative Party.
The rules are likely to remain in place for the next UK general election later this year. Election Commission says law will have disenfranchisement effect quite likely Be great in general elections.
Johnson’s fellow Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was also part of the government that imposed the sanctions, admitted in 2023 The rules were an attempt to “gerrymander” future elections to the Conservatives – but they backfired because older people, who are more likely to vote Conservative, were also less likely to be aware of the changes. .
“We found that people who did not have ID were older and voted for the Conservative Party overall,” he said. “So we made it harder for our voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well.”
Although Johnson is pushing for the pension age, he cannot claim ignorance of the changes.