2025 Electoral fraud data

In May 2025, elections took place in England and Wales for:

• Local councils (England)
• Local mayors (England)
• Combined Authority mayors (England)
• City of London Corporation

In addition, there was one UK parliamentary by-election during 2025. This took place in February in Runcorn and Helsby.

There was one by-election to the Welsh Senedd. This took place in October in Caerphilly.

Data received from UK police forces shows a total of 265 cases of alleged electoral fraud were assessed or investigated by the police during 2025.  

This table shows the number of cases of alleged fraud reported to us by the police for elections held in 2025. 

Over half of cases (57%) 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, there wasn’t enough evidence, an offence wasn’t found, or it wasn’t in the public interest to proceed.

This table and chart show the number and outcome of the cases that were reported to the police in 2025.
 

There were two cases that resulted in convictions according to information supplied by police. In Cheshire, this related to false information when registering to vote. The second case was in London where a person was convicted of personation in relation to a postal vote.

Where cases are listed as ‘other’, the alleged conduct was not an electoral offence, but concerned aspects of voting or campaigning, and so the police gave advice to the people complaints were made about.

Over half of all allegations reported in 2025 (52%) were related to campaigning offences. Most of these were about:

• campaigners not including details about the printer, promoter or publisher on printed or electronic election material – an ‘imprint’ (22%)
• someone making false statements about the personal character or conduct of a candidate (16%).

This table and chart show the number of cases and types of offences that were investigated in 2025.
 

A total of 3 cases of alleged personation fraud were recorded by police forces in 2025. 

The offence of personation involves someone pretending to be someone else so they can use that person’s vote. This can happen at a polling station, with a postal vote, or a proxy vote (where a voter has appointed someone else to cast their vote for them).

All cases (3) involved allegations of personation of postal votes. 

This table shows the number of personation allegations and their outcomes.

An election petition is a legal challenge to the result of an election.

There were two petitions following elections held in 2025.

A petition was submitted in relation to an election in Littletons ward, Wychavon District Council. This was not successful.

The second petition referred to the Runcorn and Helsby Parliamentary by-election. This was not successful.