Our top 5 most read articles of 2019

Author:
Doug Cowan, Head of Digital

Posted on the 17th December 2019

Every year we take a look back on our most popular blogs of the year.

It’s certainly been a busy year, with local, EU and now a General Election all within a few months of each other.

5. Democracy cancelled: How parties have captured hundreds of seats before local election day

Research conducted by the Electoral Reform Society, weeks before the May 2nd polling day for local elections in England, found 300 council seats guaranteed for one party or individual before a single ballot has been cast. All because of the Westminster style voting system England uses for its local elections.

4. Should we make voting compulsory?

At the ERS we often have people writing in (or tweeting these days) with suggestions for reform. Common ones get written up as articles and go online in our Our Questions Answered section.

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. We investigated the options.

3 . What is Proportional Representation?

It can be easy to drown in jargon in the world of electoral reform, and even easier to alienate people who don’t know their SNTV from their STV with long convoluted responses. Our third most read blog is our attempt to answer the question of what we are all about in the simplest terms possible.

2. How long have we used first past the post?

‘It’s served us well for the last 1000 years!’ they cry. But how long have we actually used the system we know call first past the post? Like many  ‘ancient’ traditions, the way we elect MPs to Westminster is actually younger than the building we send them to.

 1. Westminster’s voting system is bankrupt. It’s time for proportional representation

With millions of voters feeling forced to cast their votes tactically and a 1% increase in their vote leading to a landslide of seats, it’s no surprise that an article on the election would be at number one.  With hundreds of thousands of views, this article isn’t just the most read article of 2019, but the most read that we have ever written.

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