What is a Senate of the Regions and Nations? Over the years many parties and groups have suggested ideas for reform of the House of Lords. Recently, the Labour party has suggested that the House of Lords should be replaced with a ‘Senate of... Posted 01 Feb 2024
What is the role of the House of Lords and could it do more? While the House of Lords is often in the press, it’s often due to the things its members should not be doing, rather than the work it does do. The chamber though has an important... Posted 29 Jan 2024
Which is the best electoral system for the House of Lords? Whenever the issue of creating an elected Second Chamber comes up, a common question is how it should be elected. Thankfully, one of the areas of agreement on Lords reform over the years has been... Posted 27 Dec 2023
How many peers are there in the House of Lords – and how many does it need? One of the unique features of our currently second chamber, apart from it being unelected and still partially based on inherited titles, is that its membership is huge. At over 800 peers in total, not... Posted 21 Dec 2023
Why independent candidates win with the Single Transferable Vote Currently, there are 14 independent MPs in the House of Commons, which might seem to suggest Independent candidates can win under First-Past-The-Post (FPTP). But these MPs are only independent because they were suspended from their... Posted 01 Nov 2023
Proportional representation helped women get elected in 2022 In January 2023, the global proportion of women parliamentarians just was 26.5%, indicating that there’s a way to go before we have equal numbers of men and women in parliament around the world. While quotas... Posted 27 Jul 2023
Exploring the franchise: Who can vote in UK elections? The franchise has been in the news recently due to Labour considering plans to extend the franchise to resident EU citizens and 16 and 17 year olds. The question of who gets to vote in... Posted 25 May 2023
Time for a key change? How we would reform Eurovision voting Eurovision is upon us once again – everyone’s favourite flamboyant celebration of Europe’s musical talent. With quite a few ERS staff members being unashamed superfans, we thought it would be a great excuse to take... Posted 12 May 2023
How can one party win all the seats in a local council election without all the votes? In May’s 2023 local elections in England, the Liberal Democrats won 72% of the seats on Bath & North East Somerset. In Broxbourne, the Conservatives won 90% of the seats that were up for election.... Posted 11 May 2023
Why did the Netherlands adopt nationwide proportional representation? The Dutch prioritised proportionality above all else when creating their system of proportional representation; choosing a single nationwide constituency and a very low threshold. This is different to most countries which try to balance local... Posted 01 Apr 2023