Articles by Michela Palese

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Michela Palese, former Research and Policy Officer

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We’ve told Parliament the case for updating our campaign rules – now it’s time to act

Current electoral legislation is not fit for purpose. The core elements of our electoral law date back to Victorian times, with legislation failing to keep up with societal and cultural changes, and developments in digital...

Posted 28 Jun 2019

Simplifying, updating and consolidating electoral law is long overdue

Euro elections show how Westminster’s first past the post holds back women

Elections to the European Parliament take place today across the UK. As we’ve talked about in a previous blog post, the UK’s 73 MEPs will be elected using proportional representation (PR). In Great Britain, the...

Posted 23 May 2019

Electoral systems play a big role in the number of women elected

How is the European Parliament Elected?

Voters across the EU will be heading to the polls this week to elect the 751 representatives to the European Parliament (known as MEPs). Elections will be held in the UK on the 23rd of...

Posted 21 May 2019

Each member state decides the details of the system used to elect their MEPs

Does Australia use First Past the Post?

Australians head to the polls tomorrow to elect all 151 members of the Federal House of Representatives and 40 of their 76 Senators. Australian elections are world-renowned for their beloved ‘Democracy Sausages’ and the fact...

Posted 17 May 2019

Imprints – finally some action to update our analogue laws for the digital age

In a victory for voters; campaigners; academics; the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee; and the Electoral Commission, among many others, the government has finally committed to extending imprints (disclosures stating who has paid for...

Posted 07 May 2019

A small, but important, victory for voters

Digital political campaigning remains as unregulated as ever – but calls for reform are increasing

Over the weekend, Buzzfeed reported that Britain’s Future, an obscure pro-Brexit group, spent almost £350,000 on 2,600 Facebook adverts over the course of five months, micro-targeting tens of thousands of voters to get them to...

Posted 12 Mar 2019

Is there proportional representation in France?

Apart from the UK, France is the only other European democracy not to use some form of proportional representation for its state-wide elections (Here’s a list of voting systems used at the state-level in Europe)....

Posted 07 Mar 2019

The Cairncross Review on restoring trust in an age of fake news

The need to curb the unregulated power of tech giants is finally being recognised in the sphere of journalism and online information as well. In a report published today, the Cairncross Review recommended that online...

Posted 12 Feb 2019

How does proportional representation work in Germany?

[Note: Germany updated their voting system for the 2025 election, and introduced new rules. You can find out about that in our article on the election] Elections to Germany’s Bundestag – Germany’s House of Commons...

Posted 18 Dec 2018

Proportionality and fairness makes this an improvement on Westminster

Does Ireland use proportional representation?

Ireland has a long history of using proportional representation and, specifically, the Single Transferable Vote (STV). STV is the Electoral Reform Society’s preferred electoral system. Rather than one person representing everyone in a small area,...

Posted 11 Dec 2018