Voters will have to show ID in new Tory crackdown on 'voter fraud' - but is it actually happening?
A pilot scheme cooked up by Sir Eric Pickles will see voters required to produce ID before voting.
He also suggested stricter rules on postal votes and called for English and Welsh to be the only languages allowed at polling booths.
The government is expected to accept almost all of the measures proposed by Sir Eric, the anti-corruption tsar.
Of 51.5 million votes cast in elections in 2015, there were 481 cases of alleged electoral fraud.
Of these, the vast majority were not voting offences. More than half were campaigning offences - such as complaints about candidates making false statements about opponents, expenses offences or issues to do with campaign posters or flyers.
Cases of voter fraud in 2015
Just 123 alleged cases related to voter fraud, with 26 cases of impersonating another voter, 27 cases of improper postal voting and 25 cases of 'undue influence' over a voter.
Of these 123, all but 22 were dismissed - mostly because it was clear no offence had been committed or due to lack of evidence.
Of the remaining 22 cases, six resulted in police cautions.
In their recommendations on how to combat this apparent epidemic, the Electoral Commission admitted certain groups of the population were less likely to have acceptable forms of ID.
They include young people, people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, women and the elderly.
They suggested this problem could be solved by introducing a free 'voter card', which citizens would have to apply for before casting their ballot.
This plan would cost between £1.8m and £10.8m, they say.
Sir Eric says a range of forms of ID could be trialled, some of which would not require photographic evidence.
He said: "A driving licence, passport or utility bills would not seem unreasonable to establish identity."
Sir Eric insists there is little evidence that introducing the checks would reduce the number of people seeking to vote.
New strict voter ID laws introduced in some US states ahead of the 2016 election resulted in a stark drop in minority turnout.
Research by the LA Times showed that the racial turnout gap doubled or tripled in states with strict voter ID laws.
People from Latino communities were 7.1% less likely to vote if they had to show ID.
The draconian measures were pushed through by Republicans in the United States despite research showing voter fraud was essentially nonexistant.
Between 2000 and 2014 there were 31 credible instances of voter fraud in the United States out of more than a billion votes cast.
Sir Eric’s own report, published earlier this year, listed just three significant electoral court cases involving voter fraud since 2004 and only 11 significant convictions for voter fraud offences since 2005.
These included the notorious Tower Hamlets mayoral election, in which Lutfur Rahman was found guilty of illegal and corrupt practices after he and his agents were responsible for bribery, impersonation and postal vote fraud, among other offences.
But while Sir Eric’s report identified some ‘risks’ in the voting system, it provided scant evidence there was widespread exploitation of those risks.
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