Tag: election law
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Julio Alberto Barajas-Servin: When Electoral Lies Become Justiciable
Wales has done something unusual – it has enacted a duty to prohibit electoral lies before deciding what the prohibition will look like. Since 27 June 2026, section 13 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 has required the Welsh Ministers to make provision against false or misleading statements of fact made to affect who…
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Jacob Rowbottom: Digital Communications, Social Media and the Integrity of Elections
In the 2000s, I attended various seminars in which commentators complained that there had not yet been an ‘internet election’ in the UK. The complaint ran that election debates were still largely led by elites in the broadcast and print media, with citizens on the digital media playing a more limited role than hoped. Fast…
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Bethany Shiner: Just the Politics of Persuasion: Are Gaps in Regulation Affecting Political Campaigning Methods?
Introduction The chair of the Electoral Commission recently warned that British elections face a ‘perfect storm’ of threats to their integrity from developments in social media and political advertising, and third-party state actors. Such assessments, supported by allegations about the UK-EU referendum and the 2017 general election campaigns, call into question the effectiveness of the…
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Ron Levy and Graeme Orr: To Save Democracy, Reform the Law
The US election just passed has made many people wonder about the merits of democracy. If an election can still be won using the dark rhetorics of earlier, troubled times in Western history, then they may have a point. In fact, ever since there have been democracies, there have been critics of democracy concerned about…
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Anthony Fairclough: Countdown to the Election: Matrix briefing on freedom of expression at elections
It’s trite to say, but we are just weeks away from the most important General Election in a generation – especially for those interested in election law. The culture of fighting elections – and the public’s role within that – has changed in recent years owing to new technology. There is now also new (and…
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Mathias Cheung: The Hong Kong Government’s proposed electoral reform violates the Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has recently initiated a formal inquiry into the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The inquiry will focus on the constitutionality of the Hong Kong Government’s proposed electoral reforms and its compliance with international law obligations. As the biblical saying goes: ‘faith , if good deeds do not…
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Derek O’Brien – Comment On The Caribbean: Commonwealth Caribbean Elections.
When comparing the relative political stability of Britain’s former colonies in the Commonwealth Caribbean with the lack thereof in former British colonies in Africa and Asia and the former colonies of other major powers reference is sometimes made to Huffington’s ‘two-turnover test’(S Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, University of…
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Stephen Tierney: Towards a Fair and Democratic Process? Regulating the Referendum on Scottish Independence
The referendum on independence is still a year away and already attention is focused on major substantive issues such as economic relations between an independent Scotland and the United Kingdom, and the ease or difficulty with which an independent Scotland would achieve membership of the European Union. What is often overlooked is that the credibility…
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Jacob Rowbottom: Campaign Lies and the First Amendment
It is now a tradition that during an America presidential election year, commentators shall declare the campaigns to be the ‘nastiest’ and ‘dirtiest’ ever. It is difficult to know whether such a claim is true of the 2012 election, as tough campaigning has a long history in the USA (as a NY Times article from…
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Law Commission: Consultation on Elections and Referendums
Bringing electoral law up to date In a consultation opening today, the Law Commission is asking which of the rules governing elections and referendums should be reviewed as part of its electoral law reform project. Electoral law in the UK is spread across 25 major statutes. It has become increasingly complex and fragmented and, according…