SG elections department implements stricter rules on GE advertising

The Elections Department Singapore (ELD) has updated the Parliamentary Elections Act with stricter rules on advertising.  The rules have been updated to enhance transparency and accountability, according to a statement by the ELD. 

Election advertising will now be required to display the full name of every person who played an "active role" in publishing or displaying the ad. 

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This comprises of those who authorised, approved and directed the content. Printers must be identified in the case of printed ads too. For paid ads, the full name of every person who paid for it must be displayed, along with indicators that the ad had been paid for with the use of words such as "sponsored by" or "paid for by". 

Paid ads cover both monetary and non-monetary payments, as well as those that are made directly or through a third party. 

Singapore citizens who are not candidates or election agents will be exempted from this rule. 

In addition, online election advertising rules have also been updated. Boosting, reposting, sharing or resharing election ads, will now be subjected to the same requirements as publishing new ads. This is because amplification increases the reach of the content to more users and has the same effect as publishing fresh content, added ELD. 

Moving forward, the returning officer will be able to direct individuals and social media companies to remove online election ads that breaches the election rules, disable access and stop the transmission of the online ads.

In tandem, non-online election ads will now require political parties to declare the particulars of all materials that bear political party or party-affiliated symbols to the returning officer. This must be done within 12 hours of the issuance of the Writ of Elections. The declarations will be made online for the public too. Following which, the public display of new ads that contain symbols between the issuance of Writ up to before the start of the campaign period will not be allowed. 

During the campaign period, only candidates, election agents, or authorised third parties will be able to publicly display such ads. 

Other updates to the act include the process for overseas voting and counting of overseas votes. Ballot papers cast at overseas polling stations and postal ballot papers will be sorted by electoral division for counting in a General Election (GE), instead of being consolidated at the national level for counting in a Presidential Election. 

Furthermore, the maximum number of counting agents allowed to be present at the counting centre has been increased to five per political party or independent candidate

On top of that, improvements have also been made to the nomination paper and forms. The nomination paper will feature a new section for candidates to provide their names to be printed on the ballot paper. There will be a new form for candidates to make a declaration after the election as well. 

In the form, candidates will have to declare that no foreigners were authorised to conduct any election activity, and that their election activities were influenced by foreigners. The GE is due to be called by November 2025. 

These requirements come after Singapore launched the "Model Governance Framework for Generative AI" (MCF-Gen AI) to address concerns over the technology, as well as facilitate innovation. 

The framework comprises nine dimensions to foster a trusted ecosystem. Within these nine dimensions, the framework calls for all key stakeholders including policymakers, industry, the research community and the broader public to collectively do their part. The nine dimensions includes accountability, data, trusted development and deployment, incident reporting, testing and assurance, security, content provenance, safety and alignment R&D and AI public for good.

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