Covid 19 and how it could affect democracy

As we all know the Corona Virus is spreading and more and more cases are reported around the UK, and the world. The Government have to handle the issue and it affects so many parts of lives and there could be widespread disruption the PM is saying.


As part of one element of life, we have the Local Elections coming up in May and the Government are trying to delay the spread of the virus. One area of planning that needs to be considering is polling day as polling stations around the country will be opened up and official notifications for the elections will be going up shortly.

On polling days at certain times, the polling stations are a meeting area and would the Government stop Local Elections? They could make it an all postal vote system - although historically that has benefitted labour so the tories may not want to opt for that for political reasons plus there will be people just meeting and touch one area - the post box so it could spread there as well. They could well postpone the election. That would be affecting democracy and what would happen to the Cllrs terms that end in May. Will they have to stand down as their notice have said? If it is postponed how long far? Democracy has to be allowed to take place at the earliest opportunity if delayed.

Also, there are the counts were the candidates, agents and others all meet to see the count and this is again another area the Government may want to view? Keeping it behind closed doors is not one option as the candidates and agents have to be allowed to watch the process so there is no fiddling, unlike last year where there was.

If the Government is going to postpone the elections they will need to tell candidates soon otherwise they could put application for costs for all their elections material. 

So we will wait and see but the question that needs to be answered in this area is will Covid 19 affect local democracy?