Democracy cancelled: How parties have captured hundreds of seats before local election day Large parts of England are effectively democracy deserts, with hundreds of thousands of potential voters denied real choice in this May’s elections. New research by the Electoral Reform Society ahead of next month’s vote shows... Posted 19 Apr 2019
Ministers can’t let themselves of the hook when it comes to tackling the social media ‘Wild West’ Last week the government launched a consultation into tackling ‘online harm’. It’s the first step towards dealing with the tech barons of the new ‘wild west’. But ministers can’t let themselves off the hook just... Posted 15 Apr 2019
Why A General Election Won’t Solve The Brexit Deadlock One piece of news got buried last week. While Labour held on to Newport West in Thursday’s by-election, the full figures reveal an interesting picture. Back in 2017 Labour and the Conservatives took nearly 92%... Posted 11 Apr 2019
Should we make voting compulsory? Elections with low-turnout are not uncommon in the UK, so it’s only natural that questions are often raised on how we can see more voters heading to the ballot box. Some argue that the key... Posted 05 Apr 2019
In a Snap Brexit Election, 16 and 17 Year-Olds Must Have the Vote Young people are refusing to be ignored – the recent school climate strikes and campaigning on Brexit have shown that. But while they can protest outside Parliament all they want, there’s a brutal fact: they... Posted 05 Apr 2019
ERS in the Press – March 2019 Brexit might be dominating the news, but the rolling constitutional crisis that we call Westminster is still up to its usual tricks. We’ve spent the last month getting press attention for some of our biggest... Posted 29 Mar 2019
Binary indicative votes were never going to achieve a consensus This is an expanded version of a letter from our Senior Director, Willie Sullivan, that was published in the Times on March 29th. When MPs voted to take control of the order paper in an... Posted 29 Mar 2019
While MPs debate our democratic future, another aristocrat takes a seat in Parliament for life On Wednesday – while elected MPs debated Britain’s future – the results came out for the latest in a series of bizarre House of Lords ‘by-elections’. The vote – to fill the vacant seat following... Posted 28 Mar 2019
New figures demolish the government’s argument for mandatory voter ID The government’s case for excluding voters who lack ID is getting weaker by the day. Last week the Electoral Commission released its latest round of statistics on voter fraud for 2018. The numbers were revealing.... Posted 26 Mar 2019
What does preferential voting mean? There has been talking recently about using preferential voting to solve the Brexit impasse – whether through MPs using it to find a form of Brexit that parliament can support or through a referendum. When... Posted 26 Mar 2019