Our Democracy Is Not For Sale

Stephen Richard — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 09:03:50 +0000

Primary Author or Creator

Peter Ryan

Stephen Richard Sat, 09/04/2021 - 10:03

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Common Weal

Date Published

Mon, 08/20/2018 - 12:00

Category

Scottish government

Type of Resource

Policy Paper

Fast Facts

This paper looks at the vulnerabilities in the UK’s electoral process in the form of the lax regulation around digital political adverts. Such adverts can be bought cheaply and tightly micro-targeted at individual voters. The current fines levied against groups who over-spend on campaigns is low enough that not only do they provide no deterrence to overspending, the fines risk becoming actively “costed in” to campaigns mounted by well-funded yet unscrupulous organisations.

More details

― All digital campaigning materials should contain an imprint saying who is behind the campaign and who created it.

― The current fines for breaching campaign rules are too low and can be included as “the cost of business” by unscrupulous campaigners. Fines and other penalties must be increased and campaign spending must be more transparent.

― Reportable political donations must be barred to individuals and organisations based outwith the area covered by the election or referendum in question. For example, a Scottish election or referendum campaign should be funded only by individuals and organisations based in Scotland or who pay Scottish taxes.

― The powers of the Electoral Commission to ensure compliance with regulations must be increased.

― Rules around the control of spending within a defined “campaigning period” should be reviewed to consider extending the defined period or including spending

Keywords

Elections

Political advertising

political donations

Electoral Commission

Election spending

Language English