The elections in Scotland, Wales and many parts of England \u201cran smoothly\u201d, with no \u201csignificant deepfakes affecting\u201d the contests, although candidates \u201cfaced abuse and intimidation\u201d, the Electoral Commission has said.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, voters across England, Scotland and Wales went to the polls in the biggest set of elections since the 2024 general election. Voting took place at more than 17,000 polling places, and more than 25,000 candidates stood for election,\u201d chief executive Vijay Rangarajan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur initial assessment is that polling day ran smoothly. Polling station staff dealt with any issues swiftly without disrupting the poll. Millions of people were able to cast their votes, and people had access to clear, reliable information about how to take part. We have been alert to the spread of false information, including AI-generated content. Where false or misleading information emerged, we worked quickly with partners to address and remove it. We have not seen significant deepfakes affecting these elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cElection teams across England will count the votes and declare results in their area over the coming days. In Scotland and Wales, counting will begin in the morning. Candidates, party agents and independent observers will be present at counts across Great Britain at every stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will now gather evidence from voters, candidates, administrators and campaigners to inform our assessment of these elections. We will look at voter satisfaction, the integrity of the polls, and the prevalence and impact of mis and disinformation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will also look at the safety of those who stood for and ran in these elections. As in previous elections, we know some candidates have faced abuse and intimidation during their campaign. This comes at a great personal cost and damages our democracy. We will publish our findings in the autumn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The elections in Scotland, Wales and many parts of England \u201cran smoothly\u201d, with no \u201csignificant deepfakes affecting\u201d the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,89136,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-572312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-local-elections","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}