If you’re planning on going to your polling station today to vote in Swindon’s local elections, you don’t need your poll card, and you don’t need to take a pencil along.

But you will need the right sort of photo ID.

New rules brought in by the government earlier this year mean that everyone who wishes to vote in person in local elections in England, and at the next general election, will have to show an officially accepted form of identification before they are given a poll card.

Those without one will be turned away. They will have to go home and get one and come back if they want to cast their vote.

Swindon Advertiser:

The most obvious types of ID are a passport or driving licence photo card. But a photo card issued with a blue parking badge is accepted.

MOD identity cards, national identity cards issued by an EEA state, a PASS proof of age cards or government-issued older persons or disabled person’s bus passes, and Freedom passes are all also accepted.

Expired documents which have a photo which still look like the bearer will be accepted to allow voting, but in all cases the original document and not a photocopy must be shown.