Is it illegal to campaign on election day?
No it isn’t.
Or for a longer answer: No it isn’t, but it’s probably useful to explain just what political parties are doing on election.
Every time an election comes around, there’s normally a round of complaints about how terrible it is that so-and-so was out campaigning on election day, and they shouldn’t be allowed and besides, isn’t it illegal to campaign then anyway? Social media has amplified this to the point where I’ve heard of people from all parties organising polling day trips to help out on election day being told they’ll be reported to the police for it.
There are some regulations that affect polling day activities, but those are on the broadcast media who can’t report campaign events or polling, and are pretty much limited to reporting that election day is happening and that people — usually represented by shots of the party leaders turning up at their local polling stations — are voting. That’s also one of the big reasons why parties aren’t staging big national events on election day because they won’t get any coverage on TV for them, and there’s no point getting stuff in the next day’s newspapers.
But, while there might not be much about it on TV, election campaigning is going on right up until polling stations close at 10pm. The difference is that after weeks and months before…
