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Who are the victims of electoral fraud in Great Britain? Evidence from survey research

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British Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Interest in electoral integrity and the validity and accuracy of election results has come to the fore as a topic of concern both among politicians and academic researchers in the last twenty years. The literature has identified a number of key variables and processes associated with electoral fraud, and lower levels of integrity. However, one deficiency with this research is that it has relied on the perceptions of fraud and malpractice, rather than first-hand data on the extent of such behaviour. In this paper we report on the results of a novel small-scale survey of people in Britain in which respondents reported some of their direct experiences of electoral fraud in recent national elections. The results indicate that the rates of electoral fraud are currently around six to eight per cent, but that this rises for members of some ethnic minority groups. We end by raising another question: if we can identify victims of electoral fraud, how are we to redress this victimisation?

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Notes

  1. Readers should note that a similar methodology was deployed by BMG for the Electoral Commission’s 2018 Winter Tracker: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-07/Winter%20Tracker%202019%20Topline.pdf.

  2. Of all households in Great Britain, 93% had access to the internet in 2019 according to the ONS (2019).

  3. The higher figure for the more recent general election (in 2019) may be the result of recall biases which operate such that more recent or more salient events are more easily recalled, rather than evidence of a higher rate of undue influence during that particular election.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Chris Byrne for doing an excellent job of shepherding our paper through the review process.

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The authors received no funding for this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Derby, Derby, DE22 1GB, UK

    Stephen Farrall & Emily Gray

  2. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK

    Stuart Wilks-Heeg

  3. BMG Research, Birmingham, B15 3BE, UK

    Robert Struthers

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  1. Stephen Farrall
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  2. Stuart Wilks-Heeg
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  3. Robert Struthers
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  4. Emily Gray
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Correspondence to Stephen Farrall.

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Farrall, S., Wilks-Heeg, S., Struthers, R. et al. Who are the victims of electoral fraud in Great Britain? Evidence from survey research. Br Polit 17, 333–352 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-021-00189-1

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