Voter ID at the May 2024 Elections

On 8 January, we launched our Voter ID campaign in England and Wales for the May 2024 local elections in England, and the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales. This campaign is aimed at ensuring that voters know about the new requirement to bring photo ID to the polls, as well as the option to apply for free voter ID.

This is the second year we have run the campaign in England. In 2023 the campaign did very well, and we saw awareness of the requirement rising from 22% to 91% amongst the electorate in England (excluding London). This year is the first time we are running the campaign in Wales.

For May 2024, we are building on last year’s successes. We are once again using our giant “sticky note” adverts to provide unmissable reminders to voters to bring their ID on polling day, but this time with a greater array of eye-catching colours. We also wanted to make more of the option of applying for free voter ID for those who do not have an accepted form of photo ID. We have therefore put greater emphasis and urgency on this option in our advertising.

Our paid advertising will include a combination of traditional advertising platforms, such as TV, Radio, and out of home billboards, as well as digital channels such as social media and paid search. We are also continuing to use some exciting new channels that we have been trying out over the past couple of years, including advertising in cinema and in-game.

Our paid advertising will be accompanied by wide-reaching press and partnership work. On the press side, we are working with journalists and press outlets across print, broadcast and online to increase awareness, and to make sure factually correct information is being disseminated. To do this, we are engaging with national news outlets, as well as more targeted regional press and specialist media. Our partnership team, meanwhile, is working with a large range of organisations and local authorities to support groups with low ID ownership and additional barriers to voting. This includes creating a number of resources that partners can use to spread the word.

As always, we will be monitoring the performance of the campaign and evaluating it thoroughly after the polls close on 2 May. Any lessons learned will be extremely important as we move towards forthcoming elections, as well as to our core mission of making sure that everyone can participate in our democracy.