The front and back of the envelope I received with my Ayr Constituency and South Scotland Region poll card today.
Photo ID is NOT required for Scottish parliamentary or local council elections.
Why does this matter?
There is official UK research and analysis, including from the Electoral Commission in May 2023, showing that photo ID requirements create disproportionate barriers for certain disadvantaged groups, leading to reduced voting participation among them. This includes lower rates of acceptable photo ID ownership, lower awareness of the rules, higher rates of being turned away at polling stations, and self-reported deterrence from voting.
Why does this matter more for the SNP?
Opinion polls repeatedly show a higher percentage of those unemployed, in insecure and in ‘routine’ (unskilled labouring) roles vote SNP than vote for the other parties. For example in the most recent YouGov poll on 18th February 2026, 33% of this group would vote SNP but only 8% would vote Conservative or Labour (1).
https://scottishelections.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SES_SCOOP_Results_Feb26.xls
The Ipsos poll on 25 February 2026, using the older Social grades AB to DE, had 48% of group DE [unskilled, temporary, unemployed] supporting the SNP , 8% for the Cons and only 7% for Labour.
This is a serious error by, at least, South Ayrshire Council. Let me know if your constituency has anything similar.
Talking-up Scotland 
a serious error or a deliberate attempt to confuse voters, given it is not a uk parliamentary general election how will the council rectify their error?
LikeLiked by 1 person
hmmm
utter incompetence or a deliberate attempt to reduce turn-out in SNP heavy groups???
LikeLiked by 1 person
This a UK parliamentary delivery envelope. Mine arrived today stating that it was for a “Scottish Parliamentary Election – 7 May 2026”.
either someone is sending out the wrong envelopes, which I’m guessing would be illegal, or someone is telling porkies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is such a serious error that the letter to voters should be re-issued with additional clarification and assurance. Not enough to allow voting without asking for ID at the polling station on the day.
From the Electoral Commission website: ‘Voters in Scotland will not need to show photo ID at Scottish Parliament elections or at council elections.’
Source – https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/voter-id
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unlikely that this is an error.
More likely that economies have been made and a ukgov contractor was used. Who either knowingly or uncaringly used up cheap British envelopes for the mail shots.
Either way if I was on the contract team I would expect a health discount.
To support the advertising required to correct their error.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here is a wee contradiction. I have been a postal voter for a long time. I just sign within the space indicated. So, any photo ID could not be confirmed by the recipient.
LikeLike
Talking of voting……..
BBC Website.
Scotland main page.
The 3rd story updated 1 hour ago but is now the 5th Story.
(It is going down soon to be gone from the page)
“Reform UK suspends Scotland candidate over financial allegations”
(See same page and the story “Man convicted of keeping wolf-dog hybrids in back garden” that was the 2nd article one hour ago and now it still is the 2nd article).
Scottish Politics page
No mention of this story.
However on their website on the Scottish politics page they have these three articles on Reform UK. (from yesterday).
Top article “Reform vows to cut Scottish income tax below UK rate”
4th article “Reform UK’s Scottish manifesto pledges analysed”
6th Article “Reform UK want two Holyrood terms to turbocharge Scotland’s economy”
But no room for Reform UK #BAD news it seems on the Scottish Politics page ?
UK (English) Politics page
The suspension story of their candidate in Scotland is the 9th article (it was the 6th article 15 minutes ago so it is going down soon to be gone from that page also).
So basically these Reform UK candidates were only announced yesterday and already one has ben suspended .
But only suspended by Reform UK after it was highlighted by newspapers.
Yet last year Thomas Kerr told Conoor Gillies of SKY News that for the candidates for the Scottish elections “The vetting procedure that we put in place as a party is absolutely vigorous“.
Really ?
So what of this #BAD Reform UK story and the updates applied to it on the BBC website.
“Reform UK has suspended one of its candidates for May’s Holyrood election less than a day after they were announced”
“Questions had been raised about Dundee City West candidate Stuart Niven, after newspapers reported that he was disqualified as a company director”
“The party said had been suspended pending an investigation into allegations around his financial conduct”
Plus an update:
“Offord also told BBC Radio Scotland that he was aware of controversial comments made on social media by some candidates”
He said: “We are not stopping people from standing for Reform just because they might have said something fruity in the past”.
“The Daily Record reported that Senga Beresford, Reform candidate for Galloway and West Dumfries, supported Tommy Robinson in his effort to hold a huge “patriotic rally” in London in 2024 and called for Muslims to be deported”
(As did their another of their candidate’s in Scotland Faten Hameed , in a SKY News report last year where she said “For illegal immigration yes, yes, put them in camps and deport them if they don’t really , um shouldn’t be here”).
“Lord Offord said , (in respect to Senga Beresford), it was “done in a former life before she was a member of Reform”
“We have to not take offence at every moment in time.”
A “former life” ?
Just like Offord’s former life as a Tory Peer we, the public, are all supposed to forget and so forgive , as if him moving party or any Reform UK individual standing as a candidate for them is then something that absolves everything and anything #BAD they have said and done in the past.
However I am sure for Offord that the past can be revisited and used against other parties and their candidates.
Other newspapers also noted that Linda Holt , another candidate , called former First Minister Humza Yousaf a “grandstanding Islamist moron” and said “he’s not British”.
Also another one of their candidate’s Rachael Wright, from Auchterarder, spread (fake) rumours about asylum seekers moving into a former school in Perthshire.
Offord’s reaction to this: “We have brought in 80% of candidates who are not politicians, they are real people with real lives who said real things in a past life”
“This was said before she was a candidate and she wasn’t even a member of the party at this time”
“We have all made comments in the past but the problem with this modern world is everything is written down and remembered”
“We need to be more realistic about the fact real people say real things. Now she is a candidate she will be held to higher standards.”
So then what was Reform UK’s “rigorous vetting process” that Thomas Kerr insisted was being done………what would it take for a potential candidate to be considered as being unsuitable for Reform UK ?
I urge you to read Philip Sims analysis of this article where he observes that:
“Built in the “straight talking” image of Nigel Farage, Reform has always been a party comfortable with saying things that others might hesitate to voice. If that causes controversy – as it frequently does – then it gets people talking about the issues they want to discuss”.
Also:
“Other parties know this, but are quite happy to play along by piling in with criticism – because they like the idea of Reform as a sort of bogeyman to encourage their supporters out to vote”
“So this kind of row over contentious comments is likely to be a pretty familiar one over the seven weeks building up to the election”.
Pity then that both he, Sim, and his employers the BBC were not as tolerant, understanding, supportive and as magnanimous with all of their reporting upon the SNP , as a party, as a Scottish government and also with individual SNP politicians , where mostly the BBC articles and analysis of stories on the BBC Scotland pages are largely a constant feeding frenzy all under the banner of #SNPBAD.
Let’s also note that Faten Hameed is also one of their candidates (previously she stood for both Labour and the Tories) as is Audrey Dempsey also one of their candidates for May, she who was previously a Labour Councillor, who was then suspended by them and so she was an Independent prior to joining Reform UK, she told Connor Gillies last year in the SKY News report that “Asylum seekers were bringing Sharia Law to the streets of Glasgow”.
These are not serious candidates worthy of our Scottish parliament but it seems many of them are the dregs of society , who seem to hold the most despicable opinions that incite hate and division……….so then they are a perfect fit for Reform UK.
Liz S
LikeLike