2021 electoral fraud data
Overview
The UK has low levels of proven electoral fraud.
There remains no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in 2021.
2021 elections
In May 2021, elections took place across England, Wales and Scotland:
- Scottish Parliament
- Senedd Cymru
- Police and Crime Commissioners (England and Wales)
- Local councils and local mayors (England)
- Combined Authority Mayors (England)
- Mayor of London and London Assembly
Many of these polls had been postponed from 2020. There were also six UK parliamentary by-elections during 2021.
317 cases of alleged electoral fraud were investigated by the police during 2021. There were two convictions and two acquittals. Police issued cautions in one case.
This table shows the number of cases of alleged fraud reported to us by the police for elections held in 2021.
| Election | Number of cases |
|---|---|
| Local election | 258 |
| Local referendum | 12 |
| Local by-election | 10 |
| Non-election specific (e.g. rolling registration) | 10 |
| Senedd election | 8 |
| Mayor of London election | 7 |
| Police and Crime Commissioner election | 6 |
| UK Parliamentary by-election | 3 |
| Scottish Parliament | 2 |
| Local Mayoral election | 1 |
A conviction for polling station personation
West Yorkshire Police received a report that a man had impersonated another voter at the local elections in 2021. A person present in the polling station overheard the man give his name and address to poll clerks and knew that he was not the voter whose details he provided. The defendant also cast a vote in his own name in his own ward.
On 17 June 2022, he pleaded guilty at the Magistrates’ Court to the offence of personation and multiple voting in a polling station. On 8 July 2022, he was:
• Handed an 8-week custodial sentence suspended for 12 months
• Given 100 hours unpaid work
• Banned from voting for at least 3 years
A conviction for polling station personation
A man impersonated another voter in a polling station at the May 2021 elections for Eastleigh Borough Council, Hampshire County Council and the Police and Crime Commissioner. The polling station staff asked him for his name and address. He gave them his first name and address. The staff then read out the surname of another voter and asked him if it was his surname. He said it was. He was then issued with three ballot papers which should have gone to the voter he impersonated. He took them to the polling booth where he spoiled them and then put them in a ballot box. He recorded the whole incident on his mobile phone and uploaded it to social media.
He was charged with three counts of polling station personation and found guilty in the Crown Court on all counts. He was sentenced to a community order of 50 hours unpaid work. He is disqualified from being elected to the House of Commons or holding another elective office and from being registered as a voter for 5 years.
A conviction for perverting the course of justice
A candidate at the local elections in 2021 submitted nomination papers in which he lied about the date of a previous criminal conviction for theft. He provided false documentation to back up his claim. As the conviction had happened within the previous 5 years, he was disqualified from standing at the election. He was charged with the electoral offence of making a false statement in his nomination papers and perverting the course of justice for providing false documents. At trial he pleaded guilty to the charge of perverting the course of justice, and the charge of making a false statement was left to lie on file1
. The candidate received a 9-month prison sentence.
Cases where the suspect accepted a police caution
Kent Police issued cautions to two people for the same offence of personation. A woman used her mother’s polling card to try to vote in a local government election after her father suggested doing so. The polling station staff suspected that she was not the voter named on the polling card. Father and daughter both accepted a caution after the police had obtained advice from the Crown Prosecution Service.
Outcomes of all reported cases
More than half of all cases (65%) resulted in the police taking no further action. This means that the cases were not investigated further by the police because there was no evidence (or there wasn’t enough evidence), or an offence wasn’t found.
This table and pie chart show the number and outcome of the cases that were reported to the police in 2021.
| Outcome | Number of Cases | Percentage of Total |
|---|---|---|
| No further action | 204 | 65% |
| Locally resolved | 104 | 33% |
| Convicted | 3 | 1% |
| Under investigation | 2 | Less than 1% |
| Acquitted | 2 | Less than 1% |
| Caution | 1 | Less than 1% |
| Court proceedings initiated | 1 | Less than 1% |
Types of electoral fraud allegations
Just over half of all reported cases in 2021 were campaigning offences. Most of these were about:
- Campaigners not including details about the printer, promoter or publisher on election material - an ‘imprint’
- Someone making false statements about the personal character or conduct of a candidate.
This table and pie chart show the number of cases and types of offences that were investigated in 2021.
| Offence Type | Number of Cases | Percentage of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Campaigning | 166 | 52% |
| Voting | 79 | 25% |
| Registration | 35 | 11% |
| Nomination | 33 | 10% |
| Other2 | 4 | 1% |
Download this table to search for data from specific police forces, by category of offence or outcome.
Election petitions
An election petition is a legal challenge to the result of an election.
There were five petitions following the May 2021 elections, including two that involved allegations of electoral fraud. Three others involved alleged electoral administration problems. We have included cases studies of the two cases that involved alleged electoral fraud.
Fens and Greatham ward, Hartlepool Borough Council
The petition alleged that the successful Labour candidate had made a false statement about his personal conduct in an election leaflet. The court found that the statement was about his political, rather than personal, conduct. The petition was unsuccessful, and the court certified that the Labour candidate was duly elected.
High Wycombe
The petition challenged the election of three Wycombe Independent candidates to Buckinghamshire Council on 6 May 2021. It alleged that 80 ballot papers with votes for Liberal Democrat candidates had been tampered with by adding extra votes for other candidates so that the ballot papers were deemed to be invalid and not counted. The petition asked for a recount of the votes. A recount took place which led to the Wycombe Independents all gaining more votes while the petitioner gained slightly fewer. The Wycombe Independent candidate in third place received 107 votes more than petitioner. As a result the Wycombe Independent candidates applied to the court to strike out the petition which the petitioner later agreed to. The election court dismissed the petition and declared that the three Wycombe Independent candidates were duly elected.
Description of the tableau
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 52% |
| Voting | 25% |
| Nomination | 10% |
| Registration | 11% |
| Other | 1% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 54% |
| Voting | 24% |
| Nomination | 12% |
| Registration | 10% |
| Administration | 1% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 48% |
| Voting | 21% |
| Nomination | 15% |
| Registration | 15% |
| Administration | 0% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 49% |
| Voting | 31% |
| Registration | 11% |
| Nomination | 7% |
| Administration | 1% |
| Miscellaneous | 1% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Voting | 43% |
| Campaigning | 37% |
| Nomination | 9% |
| Registration | 8% |
| Administration | 2% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 56% |
| Voting | 26% |
| Nomination | 10% |
| Registration | 8% |
| Administration | 1% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 38% |
| Voting | 27% |
| Registration | 15% |
| Nomination | 14% |
| Miscellaneous | 3% |
| Administration | 3% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 54% |
| Registration | 18% |
| Voting | 13% |
| Nomination | 8% |
| Miscellaneous | 5% |
| Administration | 1% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 41% |
| Voting | 25% |
| Registration | 23% |
| Nomination | 6% |
| Miscellaneous | 3% |
| Administration | 1% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Campaigning | 52% |
| Registration | 22% |
| Voting | 14% |
| Nomination | 7% |
| Miscellaneous | 4% |
| Administration | 2% |
| Category | Percentage of total |
|---|---|
| Voting | 32% |
| Campaigning | 31% |
| Registration | 28% |
| Nomination | 6% |
| Miscellaneous | 2% |
| Administration | 1% |
- 1. The Crown Prosecution Service website says this about the term “lie on file”: In the Crown Court the judge has the power to order that entire indictments or some counts on an indictment are ordered to 'lie on the file'. There is no verdict, so the proceedings are not formally terminated. There can be no further proceedings against the defendant on those matters, without the leave of the Crown Court or the Court of Appeal. ↩ Back to content at footnote 1
- 2. These are cases where the alleged conduct was not an electoral offence. But it concerned aspects of voting or campaigning, and so the police gave advice to the people complaints were made about ↩ Back to content at footnote 2