News and Comment

The latest news and commentary from the Electoral Reform Society.

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Maine makes history as first state to back fair votes

As the world analyses the result of the US Presidential election, there’s one result you might have missed. On Tuesday one state made a symbolic breakthrough: Maine became the first US state to scrap First...

Posted 09 Nov 2016

Maine ranked choice voting

Electoral reform is making waves across the Atlantic

There’s something in the air, it seems. As I write, electoral reformers in Canada and the US have a real chance of securing a fairer voting system. As US voters prepare to pick their next...

Posted 03 Nov 2016

Maine ranked choice voting

Why cutting the number of MPs could cut democratic scrutiny too

Last week we saw the first proposals for the new constituency boundaries, drawn up by the Boundary Commission. It’s certainly caused a stir – with allegations flying around about which parties it will hit harder, whether it...

Posted 23 Sep 2016

5 simple ways to improve how we do democracy

It seems like the distant past now, but in the few weeks up to the registration deadline for the EU referendum, more than 1.35 million people applied to register. On the day of the deadline, 525,000 people applied to...

Posted 20 Sep 2016

Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith Quizzed on Democratic Reform

The Labour leadership election is in full swing, with the vote closing on Wednesday 21st September. At the ERS, we’re running Q&As with the leadership candidates for the Labour Party. On Tuesday we published our Q&A with...

Posted 07 Sep 2016