Our outdated election rules risk the integrity of the vote

Elections must be fought within the confines of robust rules—otherwise, the playing field can be skewed by the unscrupulous. Yet the rules currently in place for elections in the UK are grossly out of date. That an early election has been called without addressing the worst of the problems is damaging to our democracy.

The most obvious weaknesses relate to the regulation of digital campaigning. The last big update of the rules took place in 2000, long before social media had any significance. Recent years have seen astonishingly rapid change in how campaigns are conducted: in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, according to Electoral Commission figures, campaigners spent less than 2 per cent of their advertising budgets online; by the 2017 general election, just three years later, that was 43 per cent.

The rules have not caught up. Printed election leaflets must show who produced them, but there is no equivalent requirement for digital materials. Campaign messages can be “microtargeted” at very specific groups, and no one else has a right to see what is being said. Procedures for reporting campaign spending mean that information comes out only months after the fact (the Electoral Commission published the data on the June 2017 election only in March 2018). Even then, much detail is missing.

The tech companies have begun to fill this legal void: Facebook, for example, has a searchable “ad library,” while Twitter has just announced that it will ban paid political advertising on its site entirely. But such measures are often inadequate: notably, Facebook releases no information on which constituencies or precise demographics have been targeted. Besides, the rules should be decided democratically, not by internet bosses in Silicon Valley.

Other weaknesses matter too. There are insufficient protections against foreign interference—and it is worrying that the independent MP and chair of parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, Dominic Grieve, is alleging that the government is delaying publication of a report on alleged Russian meddling. The postal voting system, meanwhile, is vulnerable to delays, with overseas voters particularly at risk of disfranchisement because their ballot papers have not arrived on time. And badly needed protections for candidates and campaigners against harassment and abuse have not been put in place.

The urgency of these and other issues has been highlighted by a slew of recent reports. The Electoral Commission, which oversees elections, says that “electoral law is increasingly complex and outdated, and presents real risks.” It has repeatedly called on government and parliament to sort things out. The Association of Electoral Administrators—which also highlights the effects of funding cuts on the running of elections—says “Electoral reform is needed urgently as the current system is no longer fit for purpose.” That same point was made earlier in the year by the cross-party Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Just last week, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said that “nearly everyone involved in a general election faces significant risks or challenges” because of the outdated and fragmented state of electoral law. It noted particularly that candidates, parties, and election officials can struggle to work out what the rules actually are, so opaque have they become, while voters’ trust in the integrity of the process is being undermined by weak control over campaign abuses.

It is not as though these problems are especially new either: for example, the Electoral Commission first called for identifiers on digital ads in 2003.

So it should be a high priority for whatever new government is formed after the election to address these problems. A comprehensive consolidation of existing electoral law is needed, as well as a series of updates to bring the rules into the modern age.

But what of the current election? Will its conduct be defensibly democratic?

There is no doubt that there will be flaws. Underhand campaigning will go on beyond the reach of public scrutiny. Voters will struggle to find information they can trust. Some will be disfranchised through no fault of their own. We need to hope that these problems are not so severe as to undermine the integrity or legitimacy of the result—but we can’t be sure.

 

Alan Renwick is Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit at University College London and co-author, with Michela Palese, of "Doing Democracy Better: How Can Information and Discourse in Election and Referendum Campaigns in the UK Be Improved?"