The UK's political parties are on track to spend more than a million pounds on online adverts on Thursday, circumventing a media blackout rule that forces television and radio stations to stop their election coverage when polls open. British parties have traditionally ceased top-level campaign activity as they had no way to get out their message when voting began due to a longstanding broadcasting rule enforced by the media regulator Ofcom: "Discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens."
The switch to online campaigning over the past two decades has increasingly made a mockery of this rule, with early indications suggesting political parties view Thursday as an incredibly important campaign day for pushing their core messages to wavering voters. Sam Jeffers of WhoTargetsMe, who monitors election advertising in the UK for the last decade, says substantial funds have been released for online political advertising on polling day. "If these figures are correct," he said, "it could mean that more money is spent by political parties buying online political advertising on Thursday than was spent online during the entire 2015 general election campaign."
The Conservatives have been attempting to spur on support for the party by sending out emails saying turnout is much higher than expected. "We’re getting reports from our teams on the ground," according to messages sent out from the 'CCHQ data team' to those signed up on the party’s mailing list, "'And the more reports we get, the more it looks like turnout is higher than expected. So if you haven’t voted yet, now's the time to get out."
The UK's political parties are projected by opinion polls to win a dramatic victory in Thursday's general election. Keir Starmer's Labour party is predicted to secure one of its largest ever parliamentary majorities, while Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party may suffer one of its worst losses ever.
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