Voters at this month’s local elections were for the first time required to show photo ID to prove their identity.

Ahead of polling day, there had been protests the new law would disenfranchise vast swathes of the electorate across Kent.

Some regular polling station tellers decided not to volunteer this year, for fear there could be unpleasant scenes when they had to refuse a ballot paper to those without ID.

Kent Police monitored the situation closely on the day, checking in with polling stations to see if they were experiencing trouble.

In the event, the new law made almost no difference.

The number of voters initially turned away was comparatively small, and in any case most subsequently returned with ID and were given a ballot.

The proportion of those who never came back, expressed as a percentage of the total number of ballot papers issued, was never more than 0.28% (Gravesham), and in Folkestone and Hythe was as low as 0.02%.

Of course, we don’t know how many people stayed away from the polling booths altogether, knowing that they didn’t have the right ID to vote, but again the figures suggest this was minimal, if indeed it had any effect at all.

The turn-out at Maidstone for example was 29%, exactly the same as in 2022.

While in Tonbridge and Malling it was 35.8%, actually higher than their last election in 2019, which had been 33.7%.

Ben Sayd, who is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Kent, said: “These figures look fairly similar to those from other areas that I have seen.

“Data from the Electoral Commission before the election suggested most people were aware of the new rules.

“So this might suggest some people did not vote because of the ID requirement.

“But if people were aware of the rule, I doubt that too many would have been put off by this (although we will never know the true figure). The fact that turnout did not decline by much supports this interpretation.

“We won't really know much about the effect of the ID rules until the Electoral Commission publishes its early report later this summer.

“What is clear is that the new rule was a sordid political attempt to restrict electoral turnout among certain groups.

“Electoral fraud is a miniscule problem in this country (only four convictions in 2019), and so the new rule comprised little more than a party-political act.”