Voter manipulation is measured in several different ways. Surveys record what people fear or believe, police figures count reported allegations, and European monitoring bodies track information-manipulation incidents. These measures are not interchangeable: none of them alone shows that a particular voter changed their vote.
Contents
- What the UK public believed in 2024
- How confidence changed by April 2026
- What UK electoral-fraud reports recorded
- How European citizens viewed manipulation
- Foreign information manipulation and interference
- Artificial intelligence in election disinformation
- Exposure to disinformation on social media
What the UK public believed in 2024
In Great Britain, 58% of adults agreed that UK elections were fair and democratic during 24 April–6 May 2024. Confidence varied by sex and age. The figure was 66% among men and 51% among women. Among age groups, 70% of adults aged 70 and over agreed with the statement, compared with 55% of those aged 16–29, 53% of those aged 30–49, and 60% of those aged 50–69. These are survey estimates for Great Britain during the stated period, reported by the Office for National Statistics in Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain: 24 April to 6 May 2024.
Concerns about information and influence were more widespread than concern about conventional electoral fraud. In the same ONS survey, 64% of Great Britain adults were concerned about misinformation and fake news in the next general election. Media bias concerned 54%, foreign influence on UK election results concerned 35%, and electoral fraud concerned 18%. The categories describe respondents’ concerns; they are not measurements of the prevalence of each problem.
| Concern or confidence measure | Great Britain adults, 24 April–6 May 2024 |
|---|---|
| Agreed elections were fair and democratic | 58% |
| Concerned about misinformation and fake news | 64% |
| Concerned about media bias | 54% |
| Concerned about foreign influence | 35% |
| Concerned about electoral fraud | 18% |
The pattern matters for interpreting “voter manipulation” statistics. Public confidence can be affected by perceived bias, misleading information, foreign influence and fraud concerns, but a response to a survey question does not identify a specific manipulated message, actor or election outcome.
How confidence changed by April 2026
The ONS measure for 1–26 April 2026 found that 51% of Great Britain adults agreed or strongly agreed that UK elections were fair and democratic. A further 28% neither agreed nor disagreed, while 20% disagreed or strongly disagreed. The results were published in Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain: April 2026.
The age and sex differences remained visible. Agreement reached 61% among adults aged 70 and over, compared with 41% among 16–29-year-olds, 49% among those aged 30–49, and 54% among those aged 50–69. Men recorded 57% agreement and women 46%.
Concern about information manipulation was high in this 2026 survey. Seventy-eight per cent of Great Britain adults were concerned about misinformation, disinformation and fake news in future UK elections. The corresponding figures were 63% for media bias, 53% for foreign influence on UK election results and 26% for electoral fraud. Because the 2024 and 2026 measures come from different stated survey periods, they should be read as snapshots rather than a complete time series.
What UK electoral-fraud reports recorded
Police investigated 194 alleged electoral-fraud cases in the UK during 2022, according to the Electoral Commission’s 2022 electoral fraud data. Sixty-five per cent resulted in no further police action. The data also recorded 124 campaigning-related alleged cases and 13 alleged personation cases.
The reported total rose to 347 alleged cases in 2023. The Electoral Commission’s 2023 data says 57% resulted in no further police action; 245 cases were campaigning-related and 9 were alleged personation cases.
In 2024, police investigated 445 alleged cases, with 65% resulting in no further police action. The Electoral Commission’s 2024 electoral fraud data recorded 284 campaigning-related alleged cases and 17 alleged personation cases.
The 2025 total was 265 alleged cases. The Electoral Commission’s 2025 data reports that 57% resulted in no further police action, alongside 137 campaigning-related alleged cases and 3 alleged personation cases.
| Year | Alleged cases investigated | No further police action | Campaigning-related cases | Alleged personation cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 194 | 65% | 124 | 13 |
| 2023 | 347 | 57% | 245 | 9 |
| 2024 | 445 | 65% | 284 | 17 |
| 2025 | 265 | 57% | 137 | 3 |
These figures concern reported allegations assessed or investigated by police. They are not a census of all manipulation and do not establish that every allegation was substantiated. “No further police action” is an outcome category in the reported data, not a finding that all other cases were proven fraud.
How European citizens viewed manipulation
An EU-level 2018 measurement recorded several distinct concerns about election manipulation. Sixty-one per cent of EU citizens were concerned about elections being manipulated through cyberattacks, while 59% were concerned about foreign actors and criminal groups covertly influencing elections. Fifty-six per cent were concerned that the final result could be manipulated, and 55% were concerned about people being coerced to vote in a particular way. These original-year figures come from the European Union’s Leveraging open data to tackle cyber disinformation data story.
Fake news was also framed as a broader democratic risk in that 2018 source. Eighty-three per cent of EU survey respondents agreed that fake news represented a danger to democracy in general. Forty-five per cent expressed definite concern about fake news influencing democracy in general, and 38% expressed some degree of concern. The 2018 date is important: these figures describe the original measurement period and should not be presented as current prevalence.
Foreign information manipulation and interference
The European External Action Service monitored a different object: foreign information manipulation and interference, or FIMI. Between 1 December 2022 and 30 November 2023, the EEAS investigated 750 FIMI incidents, according to its 2nd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats.
For 1 January–31 December 2025, the EEAS detected and analysed 540 FIMI incidents. Its 4th EEAS Annual Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats attributed 157 incidents, or 29%, to Russia and 31, or 6%, to China. Three hundred and forty-eight incidents, or 65%, remained unattributed. About 10,500 unique channels were involved in the incidents detected during 2025.
Attribution and detection limits are central to reading these statistics. An incident count reflects what the EEAS detected and analysed under its monitoring approach. It is not an estimate of every influence operation, every piece of political content or the number of voters affected.
Artificial intelligence in election disinformation
The European Commission’s Report on the 2024 elections to the European Parliament provides several measures of generative-AI activity. In the weeks before the June 2024 vote, AI-generated content accounted for about 4% of fact-checked disinformation. In the months before the vote, it accounted for 5% of fact-checked disinformation.
Researchers and fact-checkers identified at least 131 instances of undeclared generative-AI content during the 2024 European election campaign. Those instances involved five political parties in France, Belgium and Italy. The report also records a regulatory-response measure: on 14 March 2024, the European Commission sent generative-AI risk information requests to six very large online platforms and two very large online search engines.
The 4% and 5% measures apply to fact-checked disinformation in the specified windows, not to all election content. The 131 instances are identified cases, and the source does not present them as a complete count of every AI-generated item.
Exposure to disinformation on social media
An October 2025 Eurobarometer Social Media Survey measured exposure and self-confidence among EU social-media survey respondents. Sixty-six per cent said they had been exposed to disinformation or fake news at least sometimes during the previous seven days. Sixty-one per cent said they felt confident recognising disinformation when they encountered it, while about 30% were not confident in their ability to recognise it.
The same survey found that 37% followed influencers or content creators. Among respondents aged 15–24, the figure was 74%. These results describe reported social-media behaviour and perceived recognition ability; they do not show whether a respondent accepted a claim, shared it, or changed a vote because of it.
Taken together, the available statistics separate three questions: how fair people believe elections are, what allegations reach police, and what information-manipulation activity monitoring bodies detect. Keeping the survey populations, geography and measurement dates explicit is essential when comparing voter manipulation statistics across the UK and Europe.