UK electoral law is fragmented, convoluted and causing errors

So writes Toby James:

There has recently been a rise in concerns about the quality of elections in the UK and electoral administrators have commonly been blamed for making administrative errors or not planning properly for elections.

The causes of legal fragmentation and complexity are partly devolution. This has created many overlapping frameworks of electoral law, more frequent elections and more combined elections and the lack of consolidation. But it is also that electoral law needs to be consolidated periodically and this has not been done since the 1980s.

Read his piece in full to find out what is being done about that.

UPDATE 2018: Although the Law Commission has started work on sorting out election law, there’s very little sign of it being given the Parliamentary time it needs.