Voting with proportional representation feels much more meaningful than Westminster’s systemAs part of a series on the experiences of voters in the Irish 2020 election, we wanted to speak with people who have voted with Ireland’s STV system and under Westminster’s First Past the Post...Posted 11 Feb 2020
If people want change in Ireland, they can get it at the ballot boxAs part of a series on the experiences of voters in the Irish 2020 election, we wanted to speak with voters who have voted with Ireland’s STV system and under Westminster’s First Past the Post...Posted 11 Feb 2020
Britain’s campaign laws leave our elections open to fake news and manipulationDecember’s election was the third Westminster election in four years. Each one of those has highlighted a growing crisis facing the UK’s electoral politics. In an article published by The Guardian, Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Brittany...Posted 29 Jan 2020
Electoral Registration Officers – the Runnymede Trust want to hear from youThis is a guest post from Dr Zubaida Haque, the Deputy Director of the Runnymede Trust. There are over 8 million black and ethnic minority people in Britain, yet research from the Electoral Commission suggests that...Posted 20 Dec 2019
Westminster’s voting system puts tactics above policiesChelsea 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
STV: a 200-year quest for fair votingThis 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
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 realityAs 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