What happened to the voter ID backlash?

You might have thought that a heavy defeat for the Conservatives in the local elections would silence those claiming that the government was out to disenfranchise left-wing voters by introducing compulsory photo ID for voters at polling stations. But not a bit of it.

Paul Mason was up bright and early bleating about ‘serious vote suppression’; the Mirror is reporting voters were leaving polling stations ‘in tears’ after turning up without their ID. And a professor of accounting practice at Sheffield university, who also described himself as an ‘economic justice campaigner’, tweeted that this was ‘the first reversal of the right to vote since 1832’.

That is not the view of Peter Stanyon, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, who said this morning that the elections passed off ‘without any major issues’ – in spite of some reports of people being turned away. The Electoral Commission will conduct a study over the coming weeks to measure how many people found themselves unable to vote, and suggest changes which might be made.