First Past the Post’s Third Strike We’ve heard it time and time again in different forms: First Past the Post is ‘strong and stable’. It seems that myth has been well and truly bust. This is the third election in a... Posted 12 Jun 2017
Scotland’s multi-party system can never be represented by First Past the Post At the close of the polls on Thursday, people in Scotland will have faced 10 opportunities to vote in the last eight years. Of these elections and referendums, the general election is the only completely... Posted 08 Jun 2017
The scourge of tactical voting A fifth of voters feel unable to back the party they most support this election, according to polling for the ERS. It’s more than twice the number as in 2015. This is a situation foisted... Posted 07 Jun 2017
Diversity deserts: 7.5m people can’t vote for a woman this election There’s good news and bad news when it comes to women’s representation this election. The good news is this: analysis by the Press Association suggests a record number of women could be elected on June 8th, meaning... Posted 26 May 2017
The Conservatives just pledged to take our democracy back decades Yesterday Theresa May launched the Conservatives’ manifesto. There was a lot of talk about ‘moving forwards’. But one pledge stuck out as doing the exact opposite. Theresa May has pledged to impose (or in the manifesto’s... Posted 19 May 2017
‘Progressive alliances’ shouldn’t be necessary: they’re product of a broken voting system There’s a lot of talk about June 8th being the ‘tactical voting’ election. This past couple of weeks we’ve seen the latest symptom: parties doing the tactical voting on behalf of the electorate – weeks before... Posted 08 May 2017
The next government must extend votes at 16 beyond Scotland You might not have realised, but on Thursday, thousands of 16 and 17 year olds trekked to polling stations across the country to exercise their democratic right to vote. They went with the full support... Posted 05 May 2017
Where are the women in May’s local election? Since the Prime Minister’s unexpected announcement of a General Election last week there’s been little time to talk of anything else. Our 24 hour news cycle is now dominated by images of May, Corbyn et... Posted 27 Apr 2017
We did it: petition for PR hits 100,000 signatures We did it. The petition to introduce real Proportional Representation for Westminster has hit its target of 100,000 – with over two weeks to go. Thousands of you shared our blogs, tweets, emails and posts... Posted 21 Mar 2017
100,000 names for PR: let’s get fair votes on Parliament’s agenda Four months ago, an electoral reform supporter started a petition on the government’s e-petition site to introduce a proportional voting system for Westminster elections. Today, it has over 60,000 signatures – and is growing by the day.... Posted 07 Feb 2017