Abuse and Misinformation Threaten Democracy, Electoral Commission Warns
The Electoral Commission has published its official review of May’s local elections in England, painting a picture of a democracy that remains broadly trusted by voters but is increasingly vulnerable to abuse, intimidation, and digital disinformation. The report, released alongside similar assessments of the Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections, found that 94% of voters in England were satisfied with the process of voting and 87% believed the elections were well run, while turnout was notably higher than in comparable recent polls. Yet behind those reassuring headline figures lie serious warnings. More than half of candidates who stood for election reported experiencing harassment or intimidation, a rise from 47% in 2025, and a growing number of voters said they encountered false or misleading information online, including deepfake material. The Commission’s chief executive, Vijay Rangarajan, said the findings demonstrate “the growing threats posed to democracy” and called for urgent action to protect everyone who takes part in the democratic process. The report therefore offers both reassurance about the health of electoral administration and a stark challenge to political parties, social media platforms, and the UK Government to address the darker trends now emerging around campaigns.
The issue of candidate safety has become one of the Commission’s most pressing concerns, and the latest data shows that the problem is getting worse rather than better. According to the survey underpinning the report, 55% of candidates said they had experienced harassment or intimidation during the campaign, up from under half in the previous cycle. The abuse is not evenly distributed. Women, candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds, and those with disabilities were significantly more likely to report being targeted, raising fears that the intimidation is driving particular groups out of public life. Rangarajan warned that without meaningful improvements, the very pool of people willing to stand for election could shrink. “Without improvements to candidate safety, there is a significant risk that people will be put off standing in future elections,” he said. “It requires work right across the electoral community to prioritise the safety of all those taking part.” The finding echoes concerns raised repeatedly by parliamentarians, campaigners, and electoral officials in recent years, but the Commission’s data now provides the clearest evidence yet that the abuse is widespread and worsening, not limited to a handful of high-profile cases.
The responsibility for tackling this abuse does not rest with electoral officials alone, and the Commission was explicit about where the obligations lie. Rangarajan said political parties must make it clear to their members that they should respect all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, and that social media companies need to move faster to remove abusive content and identify those responsible. This dual demand reflects the reality that candidates face abuse both on the doorstep and online, often coordinated across multiple platforms. The report suggests that, while voters remain confident in the mechanics of elections, the campaign environment itself is becoming more hostile. Parties, the Commission argues, have a unique role to play because they control the tone of public debate and can either encourage or discourage aggressive behaviour by their supporters. Social media platforms, in turn, are accused of failing to act quickly enough when candidates are targeted with threats or harassment, allowing toxic content to remain visible and accumulate over time. The phrase used by Rangarajan was particularly striking: “Protecting those who participate in our elections, whether in the polling booth or on the campaign trail, is a vital part of a healthy democracy.” Without that protection, he suggested, the integrity of the entire system is at risk.
The second major area of concern is misinformation and disinformation, which the Commission says is now a mainstream feature of election campaigns. The survey found that more than half of voters said they saw misinformation ahead of the elections, and one in ten reported seeing deepfake material – manipulated audio or video content designed to deceive. This has profound implications for democratic accountability, because voters cannot make informed decisions if they cannot trust what they see and hear. The Commission is now calling on the UK Government to require social media platforms to strengthen their responses to mis- and disinformation, rather than relying on voluntary measures. In addition, it argues that electoral law should be updated to address new threats such as generative artificial intelligence, which makes it easier and cheaper than ever to create convincing fake content at scale. The existing legal framework, much of which predates the modern internet, does not adequately cover the ways in which digital campaigning can now mislead voters. Rangarajan made the case directly: “The UK Government and the social media platforms need to take urgent action to protect voters from misinformation.”
The Commission’s proposed remedies are specific and go beyond general calls for online safety. It wants social media platforms to be legally obliged to carry out risk assessments on how their services might be used to create or share harmful mis- or disinformation, and to make it easier for trusted partners, such as electoral officials and fact-checking organisations, to flag potentially harmful content. This would effectively place a duty of care on platforms to consider the electoral impact of their algorithms and moderation policies before, during, and after election periods. The report also urges an update to election laws to keep pace with advances in digital campaigning, including rules around who can target digital adverts and how artificial intelligence-generated content should be labelled or restricted. Rangarajan acknowledged that voters remain satisfied with how elections are run and that turnout increased this year, but said that satisfaction cannot be taken for granted. “Many voters are telling us that they are worried about mis and disinformation,” he noted, adding that eroding trust in the information environment could ultimately undermine confidence in the election results themselves. The concern is not that the May elections were stolen or rigged – there is no evidence of that – but that a steady drip of false claims could persuade voters that the process is untrustworthy.
The full report on the local elections in England, along with the reports on the Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections, has been published on the Electoral Commission’s website. The findings are based on a YouGov survey of 3,808 adults in areas of England that held elections, conducted between 8 May and 2 June, with results weighted to be representative of the electorate. The Electoral Commission, established in 2000, is the independent body that oversees elections and regulates political finance across the UK, reporting to the UK, Welsh, and Scottish Parliaments. Its core mission is to promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity, through enabling free and fair elections, regulating political finance, and advocating for improvements to democracy. This report makes clear that, while the administrative machinery of elections continues to function effectively, the wider environment in which elections take place is becoming more dangerous and more polluted by false information. The Commission’s message is that complacency would be fatal. Without action to safeguard candidates and clamp down on misinformation, the health of British democracy will be progressively eroded, one election at a time.
