Written Evidence: Modernising Elections

Prof Justin Fisher, Prof Jeffrey Karp, Dr Manu Savani (all Dept. of Social and Political Sciences, Brunel University of London) and Dr Laura Sudlich (University of Essex) submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament HCLG Committee Inquiry into Modernising Elections.

They addressed questions on democratic engagement and foreign political donations, summarised as:

• We recommend resuming trials of remote online voting to offer secure and convenient voting for overseas voters.
• The public is sceptical about the impact on turnout from lowering the voting age to 16.
• We recommend a review of the introduction of Special Voting Arrangements together with a plan for how they might be promoted.
• The most workable solution at present for curbing foreign influence through company donations is a restriction on donations based on UK profits.
• At a minimum, there should be transparency on whether donations over the existing declaration thresholds are being made by citizens based abroad

See their full evidence submission here (published by the committee on 1^st June 2026)