At the university where I’m based, several of the campus security team, myself included, are licensed bouncers. The training can be useful in a job that mixes high-profile public functions such as ushering at graduation ceremonies with policing the consequences of the student union’s two-for-£10 offers on murder-mystery “inheritance” cocktails.
When your hourly rate is 125 times less than that of Matt Hancock, you have to take on as much extra work as you can in a cost-of-living crisis. And according to recent headlines, bouncers might soon be required to patrol polling stations and check voters for photo ID. It sounds initially like a nice little earner. But, on reflection, I’d relish doing that in a student town even less than I relish carrying the trays at the senior management team’s finger buffet.
Although everyone expects to be treated with respect in their job, I’m aware I might experience something less than impeccable manners when dealing with unreasonable people. Still, I’m not too keen on being branded a fascist. I know that accusation will fly when we have to start enforcing the UK’s upcoming ban on nitrous oxide (cue a thousand “chemistry experiment” excuses from students). But it will surely fly even more indignantly when I have to explain to a would-be student voter that their student union card doesn’t count as official photo ID. Being dragged into heated political sparring isn’t what I signed up for.
Government guidelines mention passports, driving licences and proof-of-age cards, among other documents. But in my experience, students routinely carry none of the above. Indeed, many don’t even carry their student cards; I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve asked to retain ID as collateral for a secure key and been told “I’ve only got my phone”.
Dealing with drunk law students has taught me to keep up with legislation, so I’ve done some googling to find out why exactly guards are being sent to the scout huts and church halls that are requisitioned as polling stations. It doesn’t make sense. Photo ID is apparently being phased in to create “an effective system for preventing electoral fraud”, according to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. But the Electoral Reform website states that “in 2019, there were only 33 allegations of impersonation at the polling station, out of over 58 million votes cast”. According to my calculator app, that's a 0.00006 per cent fraud rate. And to combat it by means of photo ID is going to cost an estimated £180 million per decade. If I pick up polling duty and get that statistic chucked at me by an angry student voter, I’m not sure what the appropriate response is.
Many students are aware that their future is looking less secure with every headline. That’s why I can understand why Manchester students recently borrowed from the same playbook as striking lecturers, barristers, teachers, train drivers, doctors and Amazon workers and went on a rent strike. The footage of students being carried out of their residential blocks by High Court bailiffs gave me flashbacks to my physical intervention training; I fear it’s only a matter of time before I’m required to call upon mine again.
What concerns me most is if an undergrad flash mob tries to occupy the polling station in protest at perceived voter suppression. If they do, I definitely won’t be sitting on them or sticking them in handcuffs, as civilian security staff recently did to a teenager in a shop in Liverpool. Maybe I could shut them up by putting bins over their heads: if it’s good enough for an election candidate like Lord Buckethead…
But how many students will even turn up at the polling station, you ask. Well, it is true that young people are less likely to vote than other age groups and, while the insomniac students who wend their lonely way to the security counter during weekends, bank holidays and other quiet times do sometimes want to talk politics, they often assert that the system is rigged and ask whether voting is even worth it.
The mischievous part of me has always been tempted – especially if they’re American studies candidates – to recite the Mark Twain meme I saw once: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” But apparently that’s a misquote.
Another part of me wants to tell them that, 17 years ago, the government planned to bring in free ID cards. This would have meant that paying for a passport or driving licence (or going online to arrange a printed verification certificate) wouldn’t be necessary. Like getting into the student bar, they’d just have to show their card, step behind the curtain and promise to behave themselves.
But the world of 2006 seems a very long way away now. So I instead ask students how they think voting should work these days – and the passionate response from several has been that they should be able to vote by text. If phones are secure enough to let users check into a flight, change energy providers or pay their rent with a few swipes, why can’t they exercise their right to democracy in the same way?
It’s an argument that’s hard to disagree with. Text voting might be a gift to Russian hackers, but, personally, I’d be happy to pass on the security headache to GCHQ – even if it denies us bouncers some much-needed overtime.
George Bass is a security guard at a UK university.
