Former Britain Prime Minister Boris Johnson was turned away from his local polling station after forgetting to bring acceptable photo ID.
According to first report by Sky News, he returned later with the necessary ID and was able to vote.
He later came back and casted his ballot in South Oxfordshire, where voters are choosing a police and crime commissioner.
New rules requiring photo ID to vote were introduced by Mr Johnson’s government in the Elections Act 2022.
The change was rolled out last year, with local elections in May 2023 the first time voters needed to show ID.
According to the Electoral Commission, about 14,000 people were unable to vote in last year’s local elections in England as a result of the new rules.
There are 22 acceptable forms of ID, including passports, driving licences, older or Disabled Person’s bus passes and Oyster 60+ cards
The government has also said it intends to make veterans’ ID cards a valid form of voter identification after some former service personnel were turned away from polling stations.
Army veteran Adam Diver, 48, said he felt “gutted” when he was turned away from a polling station in Fleetwood, Lancashire, after presenting his veterans’ ID card.
Mr Diver, who served in the Army for 27 years, said he felt as if his service was “invalidated” when his card was rejected
About Mr Johnson being turned away, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who served as his chief whip, told BBC Radio: “As someone who knows Boris well, I can’t say it completely surprises me… I do know that he then simply went home, got some ID, went back to the polling station and voted Conservative.”
Electoral Commission chief executive Vijay Rangarajan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that large-scale campaigns to raise awareness of the rules appear to have been successful.
Asked about issues some voters faced, he said: “It looks as if these are teething problems at the moment but we’re going to evaluate this really carefully.”
BBC
