Law Commissions urge reform of "complex and fragmented" electoral law

Electoral law in the UK is spread across 17 major statutes and 30 sets of regulations and is “increasingly complex and fragmented, and difficult to use”, the Government’s law reform advisory bodies have said.

In an interim report, which can be viewed here, the Law Commissions of the UK called for a single, consistent legislative framework to govern the conduct of elections and referendums.

The Law Commissions highlighted how, since the turn of the century, there had been a steady increase in the numbers and types of election, and each of these election types came with its own set of rules and systems. When these elections took place on the same day, yet more complexity was introduced by rules governing the “combination” of polls, they said.

The interim report calls, in particular, for the process for challenging elections to be modernised. The Law Commissions said this should be made easier for parties to understand and use, and judges should be given the power, in appropriate cases, to limit the potential costs for challengers.

The law reform bodies called as well for existing electoral offences to be updated and made easier for the electorate, officials and prosecutors to understand. The maximum sentence for serious electoral offences should also be increased to 10 years, they said.

The governments will now decide whether to ask the Law Commissions to proceed to the next stage of the project, which would involve submitting final recommendations for the reform of electoral law, along with draft legislation.

Nicholas Paines QC, Law Commissioner for public law, who is leading the project for the Law Commission of England and Wales, said: "Elections are fundamental to democracy. They are the mechanism by which citizens exercise their democratic rights. The price we pay as a democracy when the electoral process loses credibility is high and potentially catastrophic.

"Electoral law must be simplified, modernised and rationalised so that it can be more easily understood and used by administrators and candidates, and the public can have more certainty as to their rights. The law must be set out in such a way that policy development by Government, once properly scrutinised by Parliament, can be achieved by one legislative change, rather than a dozen spread out across several years. We are pleased to make these recommendations for reform and are hopeful that this opportunity to make electoral law more principled and efficient will be taken forward.”

The Electoral Commission welcomed the report and urged the UK and Scottish Governments to swiftly approve the continuation of the project. 

Bob Posner, Director of Party and Election Finance and Legal Counsel at the Electoral Commission, said: “During recent decades these laws have grown complex, unwieldy and out of date, which has made it more difficult to administer and take part in elections.

“It’s important that the UK and Scottish Governments now agree that the Law Commissions can move onto the crucial next phase of their work to prepare draft legislation.”