The Democracy Lag: Updating Electoral Law and the Need for a Digital Bill of Rights [Opinion]

If the last few years should have taught us anything, it's that our U.K. democracy is out of date. Electoral law in the U.K. is designed to regulate campaigning on doorsteps, leaflets, TV, and radio. It isn't built to deal with digital tools that have unprecedented potential to manipulate the public. When the Law Commission published an interim report on its project to review and modernize our electoral laws in February 2016, the Government said there was no parliamentary capacity for new legislation. Months later, the U.K. voted to leave the European Union in a referendum that the Electoral Commission later ruled saw the Leave campaign break electoral laws.