Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was briefly blocked from voting in a local election after he showed up at his polling station without an acceptable form of identification.

Johnson, who served as prime minister from 2019 to 2022, was initially barred from casting his ballot on Thursday in South Oxfordshire, where voters are choosing a police and crime commissioner. According to a BBC News report published Friday, the 59-year-old conservative was ultimately allowed to participate in the election once he returned to the polls with his photo ID in hand.

The requirement for residents to present identification, like a valid driver’s license or passport, before they vote is a stipulation of the Elections Act, legislation Johnson himself introduced in 2022. The new law was first implemented last year in local elections, but Thursday marked the first time many voters across England and Wales have had to present ID before casting their ballots.

The rule was met with immediate criticism and backlash from advocacy groups and the U.K.’s Electoral Commission, the country’s official election watchdog, which feared it could act as a sort of voter suppression. The agencies emphasized that not only could it prevent hundreds of thousands of people from voting, most of them would likely be from poorer communities or those with minority ethnic backgrounds.

In a statement issued after the polls closed Thursday, a spokesperson for Britain’s Electoral Commission confirmed that “a number of new measures from the Elections Act were in force at these elections, including voter ID for the first time in Wales and parts of England. The electoral community has been working hard to prepare voters for these changes.

“Most voters who wanted to vote were able to do so,” the spokesperson added. “Our initial assessment of the elections is that they were well-run, and millions of voters were able to exercise their democratic rights.”