News and Comment

The latest news and commentary from the Electoral Reform Society.

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Four Reasons Conservatives Should Support Electoral Reform

The Scottish Conservative Party conference kicks off today, and one of the highlights will be the launch of a new pamphlet, “Light Blue Ideas”, edited by Professor Alan Convery. Alan is a lecturer in politics...

Posted 04 Mar 2016

Lessons from referendums

While we’re nowhere near Switzerland or California in constantly using referendums, the UK is becoming accustomed to big constitutional votes. In 2011, the ballot on switching to the Alternative Vote was only the second UK-wide...

Posted 01 Mar 2016

Obvious Route for Australian Senate Reform Ignored

Interest in the Australian political system has been building over the last couple of weeks over a proposal to make some notable reforms to the electoral system for the Senate. Each of Australia’s six States...

Posted 23 Feb 2016

Australian Senate reform

In memory of Lord Avebury

On 14th February 2016 Lord Avebury, or Eric Lubbock, sadly passed away. Lord Avebury, a Liberal Democrat Peer, was a proud democratic reformer throughout his life, campaigning for proportional representation and a range of democratic causes. He...

Posted 15 Feb 2016

More Lords, fewer MPs?…

Since 2010, the Prime Minister has appointed rather a lot of Peers. 244, to be precise. That’s a lot of new politicians. So it was strange to hear the news on Friday that the government are going ahead with...

Posted 12 Feb 2016

House of Lords

Time for a Registration Revolution

Today is National Voter Registration day, launched by our friends at Bite the Ballot. Voter registration is an integral part of our democracy. If you’re not registered you can’t vote. Electoral boundaries are now also drawn based...

Posted 05 Feb 2016

Iowan Explanation – The raucous in the caucus explained

No election grabs the world’s attention quite like an American election does. This is largely because whatever else might be the case, the US is still the world’s superpower. But there is also something inherently...

Posted 01 Feb 2016