Articles by Michela Palese

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Michela Palese, former Research and Policy Officer

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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

How does mandatory voter ID disenfranchise the public?

The government is set to face a legal challenge to its plans to ban people without ID from voting across the UK – starting with the trials it intends to run at the 2019 local...

Posted 04 Dec 2018

Ontario and Québec look towards electoral reform

We’ve covered the exciting moves towards fair votes in British Columbia and Prince Edward Island – two Canadian provinces looking to ditch the broken ‘Westminster model’. But the usefulness of First Past the Post has...

Posted 29 Oct 2018

Ireland and blasphemy: Another landmark day for deliberative democracy

It sometimes seems that Ireland is having referendums every week – and today voters there are once again heading to the polls, almost exactly five months since their historic vote to repeal the country’s constitutional...

Posted 26 Oct 2018

Canada’s Prince Edward Island is looking again at fair voting

Two years ago, citizens of Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) – a Canadian province – took part in a non-binding plebiscite on whether to adopt a proportional voting system for the island. Voters – including, for...

Posted 23 Oct 2018

Voting opens in British Columbian electoral reform referendum

Attempts at electoral reform in British Columbia (B.C.) – Canada’s westernmost and third most populous province – date back more than 13 years. On Monday, voting opens on whether to scrap the all-or-nothing voting system...

Posted 22 Oct 2018

Is First Past the Post on its way out in Canada?

Around the world, countries that inherited a Westminster style of government from their former colonial rulers have been, one by one, democratising and reforming their systems. Australia and New Zealand, for instance, led the way...

Posted 18 Oct 2018

The need to rein in the ‘online wild west’ is now being recognised

Following a series of scandals around fake news, foreign interference, and misuse of personal data, the Electoral Commission acknowledged earlier this week that “our democracy may be under threat”. The Commission is calling for urgent...

Posted 29 Jun 2018

Finally, some action to reign in the ‘online wild west’ – but there’s much more to be done

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has announced a crackdown on the online political advertising industry following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Speaking at a hearing of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home...

Posted 06 Jun 2018

The Irish abortion referendum: How a Citizens’ Assembly helped to break years of political deadlock

In a historic referendum on Friday, the Irish electorate voted with a resounding Yes in favour of removing the Eighth Amendment (article 40.3.3) from the Constitution. Citizens were asked whether or not to replace the...

Posted 29 May 2018