Voters will be asked to produce photographic identification at polling stations under controversial proposals from the Electoral Commission to combat fraud.

Sam Younger, the commission’s chairman, told The Times that there was an urgent need for greater security at the ballot box following new safeguards for those voting by post.

He suggested that voters should produce a passport, driving licence or other photo ID at polling booths, or apply for a free electoral identity card.

But his comments annoyed council chiefs who are struggling with printing and software delays relating to new postal vote reforms that could interfere with Thursday’s council elections. Several councils have still not sent out postal ballot forms and others are switching to manual checking because of problems using electronic scanners to match data.

Mr Younger backed the new measures to make postal votes safer including providing and checking signatures and dates of birth and closer coordination with the police. But further reforms were necessary, he said. “I think there’s a very strong case for making sure we go down the road of tightening up the identification of polling station voting as well.”

He said that photo ID rules in Northern Ireland had worked well and had mainly been accepted by the public. He admitted that if compulsory ID cards were introduced they would “undoubtedly” be applied in elections. “I wouldn’t want to get into an argument about ID cards. But there is no doubt if you had something as a universal identifier then you would use it in the electoral context, as in others.”

Mr Younger said that the commission would be drawing up more detailed proposals about strengthened ballot-box security after the council elections.

But John Turner, the chairman of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said it would be madness to think of new reforms before ironing out problems with postal voting.

Mr Turner has been helping over 50 councils, one in six up for election, to deal with problems of delayed postal ballot packs and glitches in new computer software to scan the returns. Most councils have received ballot packs to send out but a few authorities will not get theirs till Monday.

“I certainly think something needs to be done so people have to prove their identity,” he said. “But this is for the medium term and there are far more urgent things to do first.” The main problems over printing ballot papers were due to the tight timetable of ten working days between nominations closing and ballot papers having to be sent out. “The timetable needs to be extended – by about two weeks,” he said. “We also need a complete review of the postal voting process and discuss capacity with the commercial sector.”

Many of the issues concerning computer glitches and software delays have been caused by insufficient capacity. There are only three main companies that produce the new software for checking signatures and dates of birth, and they are being overloaded by demands from more than 300 councils.

Malcolm Dumper, the head of the Association, said many town halls had decided to revert to manual checking, which could delay counts. Under the Electoral Administration Act all councils are required to check at least 20 per cent of the new personal identifiers – the signature and date of birth.

Many councils had said they would check 100 per cent using the new electronic machines. But Mr Dumper said that many officers had told him they would be lucky to make 20 per cent by hand in the short timescale.

David Monks, the head of the returning officers, said that some councils might decide to switch to hand-held scanners to solve some of the software glitches, if they could be supplied in time. One of the main problems was that the software in mainframe computers was designed to scan A4 paper, but the personal identifier papers were A5. Other glitches included the computers’ inability to pick up faint ink, coloured ink and “silver magic markers”.

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