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.