First established in 1947, it sees that elections are fairly carried out and has a supervisory role to safeguard against electoral fraud.

The elections department was established under the Chief Secretary's Office in 1947 when Singapore was a British crown colony.

[3] In 2021, the department merged its corporate office and training centre into one central location at 11 Novena Rise.

The main objective of RPD is to prevent foreign funding and potential interference in the domestic politics of Singapore.

[12] The opposition argues that the lack of an independent commission results in a higher chance of gerrymandering on behalf of the PAP, by bringing up examples of Eunos GRC after the 1991 Singaporean general election and Cheng San GRC after the 1997 Singaporean general election being redrawn into other constituencies, or single-member-constituencies such as Joo Chiat SMC after the 2011 Singaporean general election being absorbed into bigger GRCs after close electoral fights.