Sweeping undemocratic changes are being rushed through without consultationA major change to the voting system for Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners has been slipped into the Elections Bill at Committee Stage – after MPs and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee...Posted 06 Oct 2021
Ministers just sneaked out a serious, undemocratic change to our voting system in England and WalesThe government is trying to sneakily force through plans to impose First Past the Post for Mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections – a move which would cast the views of voters on the...Posted 16 Sep 2021
Analysis: Police and Crime Commissioners and the Supplementary VoteThe re-run of May’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) election in Wiltshire and Swindon takes place on the 19th August, after the winning candidate was disbarred due to a historical driving conviction. The original election...Posted 19 Aug 2021
As New Yorkers vote in their first preferential primary, in the UK it is under threatVoters in New York City were able to participate in their first preferential voting (called Ranked Choice Voting or RCV in America) primaries this week, making it the largest-ever American electorate for a preferential voting...Posted 25 Jun 2021
These government plans will hit 44m voters with less choice and a weaker voiceMillions of people went to the polls this Thursday in England and Wales to elect PCCs, plus Combined Authority mayors and the London mayor– using the Supplementary Vote system (SV). Posted 07 May 2021
How elections for the Mayor of London will workOn May 6, one year after elections were supposed to be held, more than six million Londoners will be called to the polling stations to elect their mayor (alongside 25 members of the London Assembly)...Posted 01 Apr 2021
Making it easier for unpopular candidates to become Mayors turns back the clockThese are deeply concerning plans to change our elections.Posted 18 Mar 2021
London mayoral race: Will Rory Stewart’s candidacy ‘split’ the Conservative vote?If there is one thing you can predict about politics these days, it’s that you can’t predict anything. In the space of a few months, Rory Stewart has gone from running for leadership of the...Posted 04 Oct 2019
The Conservatives just pledged to take our democracy back decadesYesterday 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
PR across the pond: the push for fair votes in the USThis week is European Local Democracy Week 2016, and to mark it, we’re running a series of discussion articles on how to make the London Assembly more democratic. Yesterday we published our first piece in the series,...Posted 11 Oct 2016