Articles by Guest Author

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Westminster’s voting system puts tactics above policies

Chelsea Oware reflects on the research undertaken during her university placement at the ERS. General elections are prime fodder for news outlets, who tend to focus on the ‘horse race’ between the two main parties,...

Posted 19 Dec 2019

With PR, we might hear less about tactics and more about policy

STV: a 200-year quest for fair voting

This December, the UK we will be voting in yet another general election using First Past the Post – a system where one party can gain an overall majority of seats with only 35% to...

Posted 27 Nov 2019

How do you register to vote and when do you have to do it by?

Whilst registration statistics have gone dramatically up since the date for the next general election became official, arguably the level of first-time registration may be being overstated. The statistics we are given tell us the...

Posted 13 Nov 2019

To vote you must be registered by the 26th of November

Scotland’s Citizens’ Assembly: What can it do to be a success?

This piece is a guest post from Conor Black. Conor is a former student of the University of Glasgow who wrote his MRes dissertation on ‘Mini-Publics in the Deliberative System’. The first meeting of the...

Posted 22 Oct 2019

In Wales, votes at 16 is one step closer to reality

As the Welsh Assembly takes a historic step towards extending voting to 16 and 17-year-olds in Wales, Daniel Priestley – Law Student at Cardiff University currently on placement with the Electoral Reform Society shares how the...

Posted 17 Oct 2019

Moving targets: What is the technical future of political campaigning?

Josh Smith, Senior Researcher at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Demos Targeted online advertising has produced a fundamental shift in the ways in which political campaigns are conducted. The ability to divide...

Posted 20 Feb 2019

A new Office for Responsible Technology

Jacob Ohrvik-Stott, Researcher for Doteveryone, an independent think tank championing responsible technology for a fairer future, contributed this piece for our report Reining in the Political ‘Wild West’: Campaign Rules for the 21st Century. The...

Posted 19 Feb 2019

Increasing the resilience of our democracy against misinformation

Cassie Staines, Senior Policy Officer at the independent fact-checking charity Full-Fact contributed this piece to our report Reining in the Political ‘Wild West’: Campaign Rules for the 21st Century. There is a moral panic about ‘fake news’...

Posted 17 Feb 2019

Avoiding America’s mega-spending election model

Kyle Taylor, Founder and Director of Fair Vote Project contributed this piece to our report Reining in the Political ‘Wild West’: Campaign Rules for the 21st Century. If you are interested in a preview of what British...

Posted 16 Feb 2019

The legal landscape: Micro-targeted politics and big data

Bethany Shiner, Lecture in Law, Middlesex University, London contributed this piece to our report Reining in the Political ‘Wild West’: Campaign Rules for the 21st Century. The evolution of data-driven political campaigning has spawned an entire industry...

Posted 15 Feb 2019