Historical enquiry

Now the world championship match is over, and we can get back to more important matters like the internal politics of the English Chess Federation and what's happening on the Forum, I was struck by this short comment a couple of weeks ago, referring to the ECF's Chess Executive Officer.

Phil was reelected democratically.

Hmm, "democratically". Interesting use of the word. Let's have a think about that.

It's been some time since I did my undergraduate degree in Modern History, so I will need some help from readers in answering the following question.

How far back in history would we have to go before we could fairly say that the electoral system of the United Kingdom* was less democratic than that of the present-day ECF?

[* provided your date of choice is after the Acts of Union, which it may or may not be.]