The coming general election is the UK’s first in approaching five years. Many changes have happened in how elections are done – partly through legislation, but partly also through informal shifts in the media, AI, and electoral administration. In this post, Sanjana Balakrishnan summarises all that is new.

The general election on 4 July will be the UK’s first since 2019. The intervening years have seen many changes to electoral process. These include important amendments in electoral law – most notably, but not exclusively, through the Elections Act 2022. They also include more informal shifts in, for example, the operating practices of social media companies and the capacity of local electoral administrators.

The breadth of these institutional changes means that July’s vote will be different from any previous UK general election. This post surveys the key points. It begins with legislative changes (on which the Hansard Society has offered an excellent and more detailed account) before turning to other innovations.

Elections Act 2022

The biggest set of reforms was introduced by the Elections Act 2022. Some of these changes related to local elections – see posts by the Unit’s Alan Renwick on mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections. The focus here is on those relevant to parliamentary elections.

Voter ID

Voters in Great Britain are now required to show an approved form of ID when voting at polling stations (as was already the practice in Northern Ireland). Eligible voters lacking such ID can apply for a Voter Authority Certificate (VAC). It is free, but applications for this election must be submitted by 26 June.

Ministers defended this change as a protection against electoral fraud. Critics said that such fraud barely exists and predicted the measure would deprive many eligible electors of their vote. Following its first widespread use in the May 2023 local elections, Electoral Commission analysis estimated that 14,000 voters had been turned away at the polls for lacking ID and never returned; those voters tended to fall into specific demographic groups – younger, ethnic minority, and poorer. This figure likely underplayed the impact, as it missed those who never turned up because they knew they lacked acceptable ID or did not apply for a VAC in time. According to the Cabinet Office, an estimated two million eligible voters lack a form of approved ID.

Regulations for proxy and postal voting

Registering to vote by post or proxy previously required a paper form; now it can be done online. Voters must now re-apply to vote by post every three years, whereas previously there was no expiry date. A single elector may now hand-deliver no more than five postal ballots including their own and must fill out a form upon submission; previously there was no such limit or certification. Political campaigners are banned from handling postal votes. Also, a person can now be a proxy for no more than four electors – only two of whom can be UK residents. These regulations apply to all UK parliamentary elections except for those in Northern Ireland.

Like voter ID, these changes were recommended by the Pickles report on tackling electoral fraud. The Electoral Commission backed many of that report’s proposals, but raised concerns that proxy vote delivery limits could inadvertently ‘disadvantage some electors with a genuine need to appoint a proxy’.

Accessibility requirements

Protections for disabled voters introduced by the Act are two-fold: disabled voters may be accompanied by anyone over 18 years old to assist them; and registration officers must take ‘all reasonable steps’ to provide the equipment and support that disabled voters may need at polling stations.

Overseas voting

The Act removed the 15-year year limit on voting rights for British expatriates and extended the registration period for overseas voters from one to three years. Government estimates indicate that this change will enfranchise 2.3 million people. It also means that British expatriates can donate to political campaigns regardless of the time they have spent living abroad.

Oversight of the Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission’s core function is to oversee elections and political finance in the UK. The Act empowers ministers to draft a ‘Strategy and Policy Statement’, subject to parliamentary approval, to guide the Commission’s work. It also gives the Speaker’s Committee the responsibility to oversee the Commission’s compliance with the statement. These changes were criticised by opposition parties in parliament, by the Commission itself, and by experts including Alan Renwick, who suggested they could threaten the Commission’s crucial independence.

Digital imprints

Electoral law stipulates that printed election campaign material must state the printer, promotor, and candidate’s name and address. The Act extended these ‘imprint’ requirements to digital material. Electoral Commission guidance states that these rules apply to any digital material that is available to ‘any section of the public’.

Other legislative changes

Beyond the Elections Act, several other primary legislative Acts have made relevant changes:

• Repealing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 restored the Prime Minister’s power, through a request to the King, to call a general election. This affects not only election timing, but also the practicalities of organising the votes: the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) expressed concern that a surprise election could place acute pressure on administrators.
• The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 ended parliament’s role in approving new constituency boundaries, thereby protecting the process from political interference. New boundaries – stipulated by the Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023 – are in force for this election, affecting 90% of constituencies across the UK.
• The Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 made it an offence to accompany someone into a polling booth or be nearby with the intention of influencing their vote. This is designed to combat family voting – a practice in which an individual coerces their family members to vote a certain way.
• The National Security Act 2023 introduced new offences relating to foreign interference in UK elections. Political influence activities by state actors must now be registered with a Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.

Finally, secondary legislation was passed in November 2023 to uprate campaign spending limits in line with inflation; they had not been altered since they were introduced in 2000. The change is sudden and large: spending limits on national campaigns by political parties has increased by 80%, and total spending on both national and constituency campaigns by parties can now total £75.9 million, up from £52.5 million. Transparency International said the raised limits could ‘undermine the political level playing field and strengthen the perception that money brings influence’.

Non-legislative changes

Beyond formal legal changes, the way this election is being conducted has shifted in multiple ways. The remainder of this post highlights four areas of change: in the ease of election administration, the role of AI, the nature of the media (both social and traditional), and the approach of the Electoral Commission.

Administration capacity

The AEA has reported increasing difficulty in recruiting and retaining electoral administration staff. It cites ‘a combination of the increasing complexity of delivering elections, a reduction in local authority resources, pay rates and COVID-19’ as reasons for this trend, and warns that changes introduced by the Elections Act are making the elections process increasingly complicated. It has said that finding suitable polling station venues is also an increasing problem.

Generative AI

As outlined by government guidance, the burgeoning popularity of generative AI since the last general election may jeopardise the security of the electoral process, notably by enabling the spread of disinformation. For example, a deepfake audio of Keir Starmer verbally abusing Labour staffers was circulated on Twitter/X in October 2023. The BBC recently found deepfake clips circulating on TikTok of Rishi Sunak saying he is spending public money to send his ‘mates loads of dosh.’

Media

Broadcast television news still reaches 70% of UK adults, so a balanced and accurate broadcast television news environment remains important. GB News and TalkTV – launched, respectively, in 2021 and 2022 – have challenged that environment. Ofcom has led several investigations into GB News for breaking impartiality rules and announced in May that it is considering statutory sanctions against the outlet for continued rule breaches.

Social media platforms are increasingly becoming a dominant source of information, particularly for younger voters. In 2021, the government launched a strategy to promote media literacy noting ‘a rise in misinformation and disinformation on social media and other online platforms during the global pandemic’. Then Digital Minister Caroline Dinenage declared: ‘false or confused information spread online could threaten public safety and undermine our democracy’.

The Theresa May government’s Online Harms white paper declared an intention to deliver legislation requiring media platforms to control disinformation and misinformation. It included proposals for companies to limit the visibility of false information, use fact-checking services, and be transparent about how they tackle disinformation and misinformation. However, these provisions did not make it into the ensuing Online Safety Act.

Some platforms have created their own regulations. Instagram now labels content as false if fact-checkers have identified it as such and removes it from explore pages. WhatsApp introduced message forwarding limits to ‘slow down the spread of rumours, viral messages, and fake news’. However, other platforms have been less willing to introduce such regulations. Since changing ownership in 2022, X/Twitter has taken a firmly anti-regulation stance, removing forms of moderation.

Responding to these concerns, mainstream news broadcasters are creating dedicated teams to tackle disinformation spread. For example, BBC Verify was launched in May 2023 – a team of fact-checking journalists with transparent verification processes to build trust in content they brand as verified. The creation of such teams may signal that the role and responsibilities of news broadcasters in maintaining public trust is being redefined.

The rise of social media has also led to a pivot in party campaign strategies. This is the first election in which all parties are campaigning on TikTok. Financial Times analysis (which itself represents a form of data journalism that has grown substantially since 2019) suggests that Labour, at least in the campaign’s early stages, outperformed other parties on this platform – receiving 36.6 million cumulative TikTok views as of 4 June, compared to Reform’s 20.6 million, and the Conservatives’ 12.9 million.

Role of the Electoral Commission

Partly in response to concerns about disinformation, the Electoral Commission has expanded the guidance and information it provides for voters. Voters can now enter their postcode to find the candidates standing in their constituency – with links to voluminous further information collected by the charity Democracy Club – and their local council contact details. The Commission also has new guidance on campaigning rules for voters. Such developments mirror proposals made in a Constitution Unit report, Doing Democracy Better, published in 2019.

Conclusion

The institutions which shape the UK’s electoral process have undergone significant changes since the last general election. Following July’s election, it will be important to reflect on how these new arrangements have fared and what further changes may be needed in the future. In today’s world, the conduct of elections is far from static.

About the author

Sanjana Balakrishnan is a clerk in the House of Commons and is working on secondment at the Constitution Unit during the election period.