Maverick Story's - October 3, 2025

Restoring Trust in our Democracy – The Strategy for modern and secured elections.

team maverick October 3, 2025

0 12 min read

Oct 2025 : We Indian’s take pride in our democracy, alongwith its evolution and how it has and continues to inspire. As a government, we have a responsibility to protect and strengthen it.

The right to participate in our democracy is a defining aspect of our national identity and should not be taken for granted. Over the centuries, stretching back to the Magna Carta, men and women have struggled long and hard for the right to vote. We remember the efforts of the Suffragettes (Women’s Indian Association (WIA), founded by Sarojini Naidu and others), and others in their fight to advance and widen participation in our democracy.

In each generation there must be a national conversation about how to protect our democratic system and culture, so that we build on our advances and bequeath a democracy more robust and relevant to the next generation. We must build upon the foundations laid by those who came before us, and continue to strengthen, modernise and improve our democracy, leaving it in a better place than we found it.

The world is changing but our political system has not kept pace. If harnessed correctly, new technologies have the power to strengthen and simplify our democracy, so voters feel confident and connected. Yet at the same time we must contend with hostile actors who seek new ways to disrupt our way of life, and candidates being put off standing by intimidation and violence. Declining trust in our institutions and democracy itself has become critical, but it is the responsibility of government to turn this around and renew our democracy, just as generations have done before us.

This strategy aims to usher in a new chapter in our democracy, reflecting our principles, and restoring faith in our politics. In doing so, we have set ourselves urgent new tasks: futureproofing our democracy, securing our elections and upholding our values, and protecting our elections against interference. Our aim is bold but simple; to reclaim Britain’s democracy as an aspiration for the rest of the world.

To do this we will bring forward a Bill during this Parliament. This landmark legislation is the boldest and most ambitious change to our democracy for decades. It includes expanding the democratic rights of young people and working towards a system of automated voter registration; bringing forward new safeguards on digital campaigning and paving the way for digital voter identification; rebuilding our firewall against foreign interference and protecting those who put their name forward to stand in elections against harassment and intimidation; and holding our elected officials to higher standards than ever before.

It is testament to the ongoing hard work and dedication of Returning Officers, Electoral Registration Officers and their teams that our elections have been delivered securely and successfully, but we cannot take this for granted. The strength of our democracy is determined by how much of the country participates, and the faith they have in the results. With these values in mind, we will make our democracy fit for the future.

The government should be committed in restoring trust in our political system, by strengthening our democracy and encouraging full participation by legitimate voters in our elections. A key part of democracy is making sure everyone has a voice. But declining turnout and low voter registration numbers show that many have lost confidence that they are being listened to. Evolving security risks, ever-increasing levels of intimidation and harassment, and concerns around foreign interference in our elections all contribute to this generational challenge. We must act now to tackle these threats to our democracy.

The above discussed strategy sets out the actions the government will take to simplify, protect and promote our democracy. We will make important changes to our electoral franchise, registration processes, political finance framework, campaigning rules and voting processes. We will take action to address the threat posed by harassment, abuse and intimidation. These changes will help to keep our elections secure, build public trust and encourage more people to engage and participate.

The government should commit to deliver for people across the country irrespective of caste, religion, dialect working across the breadth and depth of government to ensure every part of the country is heard, whilst respecting the history and differences in the systems across various states and union territories.

Collaboration with the state governments is the key to the central government’s commitment to make the devolution settlements across the nation work effectively to deliver on people’s priorities, and more broadly to the government’s approach to rebuild the country.

The aim should be to deliver these commitments during the lifetime of this Parliament through a programme of electoral reform. To implement these changes, every stakeholders should work closely with our partners in the local state and central government, with the electoral sector, with education and civil society, and with citizens themselves to ensure impacts are thoroughly considered and changes are successfully delivered.

The world is ever changing, and we must take action to ensure our democracy evolves with it. Much of our electoral legislation dates back decades, laws, systems and processes are outdated and, in places, inadequate. To futureproof our democracy, we need to take action to provide our elections with the security and resilience they need, to engage people from every strata in our democracy and set them on course for a lifetime of participation, and to ensure every legitimate elector can take part.

Everyone who is entitled to vote should be able, supported and encouraged to do so. However, the Electoral Commission estimates that as many as few million otherwise eligible citizens are either incorrectly registered or not registered at all. Recently widespread reports of fake voters were found in important constituencies. The initiative being spear headed by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Addressing this registration gap must be a priority in order to increase participation in our elections.

The ambition should be to transform our registration practices, harnessing data and moving towards an automated system so voters can easily and simply be registered to vote. This requires a multifaceted approach through both immediate improvements in data sharing and integration of digital services, and, for the longer-term, testing innovative approaches before permanently implementing those changes that prove successful.

Vide these approaches, along with setting Well-Defined Strategies in improving voter registration will protect the existing registers, voter data and processes which are integral to the democratic process whilst setting our course for transformation. Our approach will harness existing data across government to support improvements now and we will work at pace to explore, test and implement new methods of automated voter registration in the future. Ultimately, we will find the best ways of ensuring all eligible citizens have the opportunity to be registered in the easiest way possible for them.