According to the Crawley MP, Henry Smith speaking on 13th March “My constituents rightly care about the security of their ballots. May I ask for Crawley to be considered for a future voter ID pilot?” Now I am sure that all constituents from all parts of the UK care about the security of their votes. However ID provision is a long way from security and as this article explains, the Electoral Commission dealt with a total of 266 allegations as part of the 2018 elections. Of these 140 related to claims of illegal campaigning and 57 related to complaints about the voting process and of these, 8 related to complaints about people who were suspected of voting fraudulently. It is widely recognised that there are very few occasions when votes are stolen, and also that an ID system will both put off many voters but also cost society as a whole a great deal of money. Surely MPs need to hand over such proposals to people who have nothing to gain or lose by these arrangements and perhaps the focus needs to be on campaigns, not on ID requirements. In any event the response from Brandon Lewis “My hon. Friend makes a good point. We will be looking carefully at the evaluations from the 2018 pilots and—when they come forward in a few months—the 2019 pilots to help inform our next steps and to shape how the final policy will look when introduced. We can benefit from close collaboration with local authorities, and we would welcome the involvement of Crawley as we progress.” rather puts Henry’s suggestion out into the long grass as he is a strong critic of the local authority in Crawley so they are unlikely to get involved.