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Most Kiwis consider the voting system a settled matter
Electoral Reform in Westminster

Questioning New Zealand’s proportional system led to questions about the prime minister’s position

New Zealand heads to the polls on November 7 and as a country with similar political traditions to the UK, it is...

healthy democracies depend on strong communities
ERS Scotland

Denmark’s three-day democracy festival that attracts over 65,000 visitors

I had the opportunity to visit Denmark’s democracy festival, Folkemødet, (translated as the People’s Meeting), this June. Representatives from Perth and...

Any bloc with more than 42% of the vote would get up to 70 bonus seats
Electoral Reform in Westminster

Proposed Italian electoral law would remove First Past the Post seats – but it’s not all good news

For much of the post-war period, Italy was famous for having a very proportional electoral system – but this all...

9.1% of voting age Americans lack ready access to a document proving citizenship
Voter ID

While the UK is making voting more accessible, the US is cracking down

Currently, the UK is reassessing our restrictive voter ID laws. The Representation of the People Bill, if passed, would see...

Democratic renewal in Portugal requires reforming how representatives are elected
Electoral Reform in Westminster

The electoral reform Portugal needs

Nearly fifty years after the transition to democracy, Portugal’s electoral system for its national parliament (the Assembleia da República) has...

As the electorate increasingly fragments our system is failing to reflect our preferences
Electoral Reform in Westminster

What can the Effective Number of Parties tell us about First Past the Post?

Written by Thomas Worth The results of the 2024 General Election were the most disproportional in British political history. The...

Photo of Golden Gate Bridge, California. Text overlay:
Electoral Reform in Westminster

What can the UK learn from California’s Prop 50 gerrymandering plan?

A high-stakes fight is underway in the United States over redrawing the constituencies for the House of Representatives in Washington,...

South Africa Apartheid
Electoral Reform in Westminster

How First Past the Post helped apartheid take hold in South Africa

South Africa’s history shows how an electoral system can change everything. Sometimes, democracy’s biggest dangers aren’t coups or revolutions, but...

Does the setting shape the spirit of our democratic conversations?
Citizens' Assemblies

What Denmark’s Folkemødet can teach us about rebuilding trust in democracy

This summer, I visited Folkemødet, Denmark’s annual democracy festival held in the coastal town of Allinge on the island of...

In saturdays election Tasmanian voters will have the beenfit of using the single transgerable vote
Electoral Reform in Westminster

Every vote counts in the Tasmanian election

This article is a guest post by Ralph Hall, previously Coordinator of the National Coalition for Proportional Representation, who has...

First Past the Post has randomly thrown up parliaments that bear little resemblance to how Canadians voted
Electoral Reform in Westminster

First Past the Post has played havoc with Canadian federal elections

Earlier this year, we wrote about Justin Trudeau’s regret at failing to deliver electoral reform during his near decade as...

There is no denying that Germany’s system has done a better job of reflecting the wishes of voters than the FPTP system
Electoral Reform in Westminster

Exploring the proportional outcome of Germany’s 2025 Federal election

With around 84.5 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous country in western Europe. A German Federal election, where representatives...