Will I need photo ID to get a postal vote?Slowly, the country is waking up to the fact that the government have changed the rules for who can vote. Voters on the 4th of May who want to take part in local elections across...Posted 10 Feb 2023
Welcome to Your Vote Week – Raising young people’s political awarenessThis week is Welcome to Your Vote Week, a campaign by the Electoral Commission to spark campaigners across the UK to speak to students in schools and raise young people’s political awareness. Amidst a global...Posted 02 Feb 2023
Why did Belgium adopt proportional representation?In 1899, Belgium became the first country in the world to adopt a proportional system for national elections. At that point, it had primarily been the preserve of theoretical debate, with only a handful of...Posted 01 Feb 2023
Government plans heading for trouble as just 10,000 people apply for government-issued voter IDEvidence is building that the Government’s flagship voter ID policy is heading for failure and election day chaos in May as millions still lack the necessary ID to vote on election day. Last month polling...Posted 01 Feb 2023
We told the Welsh Government our suggestions for how to remove barriers to votingSince elections were devolved to Wales in the Wales Act 2017 there have been a lot of changes for Welsh democracy. We’ve seen the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds and...Posted 31 Jan 2023
All the ways the government decided not to make their voter ID rules fairerThis May, millions of people will be asked to bring photo ID to the polling station for the first time. We’ve raised concerns that the list of ID options published by the government gives few...Posted 23 Jan 2023
What are the alternatives to First Past the Post?Westminster’s First Past the Post system means we don’t get a parliament that fully represents the voting public. Millions of people can support one party and get a single MP, while a few hundred thousand...Posted 19 Jan 2023
£5.6 million to promote voter ID website that wasn’t live yetWe told the government that voter ID was a costly distraction. First, it was £55m for new A4 polling cards and envelopes. Then cash-strapped councils were forced to spend £1.3m on thousands of mirrors and...Posted 10 Jan 2023
How did Switzerland get proportional representation?In the early 1890s, a handful of Swiss cantons (states) held the first public elections in Europe to truly use proportional representation (PR). The success of these early votes meant that over the next few...Posted 06 Jan 2023
The top 5 most-read ERS articles from 2022Every year we have a look through the stats to see which of our articles were the most popular with readers in the year coming to a close. So if you missed them the first...Posted 15 Dec 2022