16 September 2019

Election officials in the UK have voiced "genuine concerns" about the expectation that elections will always be safely delivered regardless of the landscape, timing, funding or capacity of people delivering them.

The new report from the Association of Electoral Administrators highlighted the disenfranchisement of EU citizens in the UK and British nationals abroad, noting that the late notification of the EU elections added significant pressure to already stretched electoral administrators.

Scott Ainslie - Green Party MEP for London and substitute member of the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs committee - responded to the news:

"It’s horrifying to learn that British election officials are being put under so much pressure that “cracks are beginning to show”.

It should be obvious that democratic standards, here in the UK and beyond, are not plucked out of thin air. It takes decades of hard work to build a healthy and functioning democracy. Once you have these standards in place, you need to fight tooth and nail to protect them.

At this tumultuous moment in history, the UK’s democracy faces unprecedented challenges - risks of foreign interference, voter profiling, and online targeting from unscrupulous, shady corporations like Cambridge Analytica. And given that our current Government seems to be doing everything in its power to undermine the UK’s hard-won democratic standards, it’s more important than ever that British election officials have the time, funding and resources they need to do their job properly.

We can’t sit back while an extreme wing of the Tory Party drags the UK out of the EU, and has a bonfire of our remaining democratic protections. That’s why I’m echoing the calls of the Association of Electoral Administrators for the Government to conduct a risk assessment of the UK’s ability to hold a snap general election. I’ll also be writing to the Government to demand a review of our electoral framework to ensure it is robust and fit for the future.

If the UK Government believes for a moment that Brexit is about bolstering the UK’s democratic standards, it would put any question of holding a snap election on hold and begin this process immediately."