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The latest news and commentary from the Electoral Reform Society.

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Should we make voting compulsory?

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. Some argue that the key...

Posted 05 Apr 2019

Forcing people to vote won’t tackle the causes of low turnout, merely the symptoms.

ERS in the Press – March 2019

Brexit might be dominating the news, but the rolling constitutional crisis that we call Westminster is still up to its usual tricks. We’ve spent the last month getting press attention for some of our biggest...

Posted 29 Mar 2019

Binary indicative votes were never going to achieve a consensus

This is an expanded version of a letter from our Senior Director, Willie Sullivan, that was published in the Times on March 29th. When MPs voted to take control of the order paper in an...

Posted 29 Mar 2019

MPs must lead the way in finding better ways of doing politics

What does preferential voting mean?

There has been talking recently about using preferential voting to solve the Brexit impasse – whether through MPs using it to find a form of Brexit that parliament can support or through a referendum. When...

Posted 26 Mar 2019

Preferential votes have been used around the world

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

ERS in the Press – February 2019

Another wild month in politics – from crucial Brexit votes to the apparent disintegration of Britain’s party structures. Throughout, we’ve been pointing at the elephant in the room: the crumbling state of Britain’s democracy and...

Posted 28 Feb 2019

With first past the post, country and city voters take turns being locked out of government

Far too often, debates around electoral reform are characterised as the idea of making two pie charts match: one pie chart represents how the country voted, the other the make-up of parliament. The 2015 general...

Posted 28 Feb 2019

the way we elect MPs divides the country

As Westminster struggles with party splits, electoral reform is back in the debate

You don’t have to listen hard to hear Westminster’s party system creaking and crumbling. This past two weeks has drawn back the curtain on an undeniable reality: the structures underpinning Parliament’s politics are falling apart....

Posted 26 Feb 2019

Brexit has drawn back the curtain on Britain’s unwieldy coalitions

In one sense, the formation of The Independent Group on Monday came to many as a shock to the system. But in another sense, it simply reflected a long-term reality. Britain’s parties are unwieldy coalitions,...

Posted 19 Feb 2019

The big parties are artificially cobbled together by a broken electoral system

How long have we used First Past the Post? You might be surprised

We’re right to be proud of the long history of parliamentary democracy in Britain. But the way we elect MPs to Westminster is a relatively new development in that history. There have been countless reforms...

Posted 11 Jan 2019