SIR - Craven District Council has announced that they are one of a small number of councils which will take part in a voter ID pilot in the local elections in May this year. Up until now voters have only had to declare their identity at the polling station to be allowed to fulfil their democratic right to vote. This May each voter will have to provide means of identification. This will either have to be one piece of photo identification or two non-photo pieces of identification.

This is a solution looking for a problem. Voter fraud in the United Kingdom is vanishingly small but here is real danger that this will reduce further the proportion of the electorate who turn out to vote for our local councillors.

There are so many more important problems within our electoral system that require attention. Because of the first past the post system many voters are effectively disenfranchised. Parliamentary seats where one party or other has held sway for over 100 years are not much better than the rotten boroughs of 200 years ago and surely the argument that our current system produces stable government has been overturned by recent political events. A change to proportional representation is long overdue.

I am not alone in my view. The Electoral Reform Society is clear in its condemnation of the voter ID proposals and the trial that is about to be inflicted on the voters of Craven. They are also clear that there are much more important and radical revisions that need to be made to our electoral system.

Andrew Murday (Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Skipton and Ripon)

Glasshouses, Harrogate.