By Paulo Trigo Pereira, Professor of Economics, University of Lisbon (ISEG) and President of Institute of Public Policy

Portugal is often seen as a stable democracy. Since the peaceful Carnation Revolution of 1974, the country has consolidated democratic institutions, joined the European Union, and experienced decades of political stability.

Nearly fifty years after the transition to democracy, Portugal’s electoral system for its national parliament (the Assembleia da República) has changed very little. What once helped ensure proportional representation now shows clear signs of strain. This is the starting point of the civic initiative “Reforming the Electoral System: Renewing Democracy”, launched by the Lisbon-based think tank Institute of Public Policy (IPP). The project argues that democratic renewal in Portugal requires revisiting and reforming how representatives are elected.

A System That Limits Voter Choice

Portugal uses Party List Proportional Representation with closed party lists. Voters choose between parties, but they cannot express any preference for individual candidates. Party leaderships determine both who appears on electoral lists and the order in which candidates are elected.

In comparative perspective, this is increasingly unusual. Portugal is one of only a handful of European Union countries where voters cannot influence the selection of candidates at all in legislative elections. In most proportional systems, voters can either choose between candidates directly, rank candidates within party lists, or cast separate votes for parties and individual representatives.

The consequence is a weak accountability link between voters and elected representatives. Members of parliament depend primarily on party leadership for their political careers, rather than on citizens. Over time, this institutional feature contributes to political disengagement and a perception that elections offer limited real choice.

Territorial Inequality, Discrimination and Political Fragmentation

A second major issue concerns territorial representation. Electoral districts in mainland Portugal coincide with the eighteen administrative districts whose populations differ sharply. This produces large differences in district magnitude – the number of seats allocated per district.

In smaller, less populated districts, particularly in the interior of the country, voters face a structural disadvantage. Only a small number of seats are available (e.g Portalegre with just two), which effectively restricts competition to the largest parties. Voters who support smaller parties often know in advance that their vote is unlikely to translate into representation. As a result, many feel pressured to cast a “useful vote” or abstain altogether.

The opposite happens in large urban districts such as Lisbon (48 MPs) or Porto (40 MPs), where many seats are allocated and proportionality is dramatically higher. Such larger districts promote excessive political fragmentation since in these districts political representation can be achieved with a very low percentage of votes. Effective electoral thresholds are extremely low in these districts. The outcome is unequal representation based solely on geography – an issue with significant implications for political inclusion, territorial cohesion and parliamentary fragmentation.

A Civic and Participatory Approach to Reform

What distinguishes the IPP initiative is not only its diagnosis, but also its approach. The project is explicitly non-partisan and citizen-led. Rather than advocating a single technical solution from the outset, it frames electoral reform as a democratic process that must combine public deliberation, academic expertise, and institutional feasibility.

The project began with the public launch of a Manifesto for Electoral Reform, and a crowdfunding campaign, reflecting its independence from political parties and public funding. Its premise is that meaningful reform must be grounded in civic legitimacy, not elite negotiation alone.

Over the course of a year, the project promotes public consultation through focus groups and seminars held across the country, with particular attention to regions disadvantaged by the current system. These discussions aim to incorporate citizens’ perspectives and experiences into the reform debate.

At the same time, the project invests in electoral literacy. A dedicated website (in Portuguese here) provides accessible explanations of electoral systems, comparative research, and frequently asked questions. This reflects a key assumption: informed citizens are essential to meaningful institutional reform.

From Debate to Institutional Change

The initiative is not limited to discussion. Its explicit goal is to launch a Citizens’ Legislative Initiative in parliament, backed by twenty thousand signatures. This mechanism allows citizens to formally place legislative proposals on the parliamentary agenda.

In doing so, the project seeks to strengthen democratic participation not only through the content of reform, but through the process itself. Electoral reform becomes both a means and an end of democratic renewal.

The Portuguese case illustrates a broader challenge facing many established democracies: how to redesign political institutions created decades ago to societies that are more educated, more connected, and more demanding of political accountability.

Find out more about the work of Lisbon’s Institute of Public Policy.

Find out more

Written by Thomas Worth

In the months leading up to elections, voters are often inundated with all sorts of literature from political parties and candidates. From leaflets to surveys, or even sudoku puzzles, political parties use campaign literature to vie for our votes. It is important for the health of our democratic process that parties and candidates are able to communicate with voters, and many people will value the opportunity to hear from those who are seeking their votes. However, other people may be less keen to hear from parties or, more likely, particular parties.

When you consider that during the 2024 General Election campaign alone, Royal Mail delivered 184 million freepost leaflets from candidates. And that this figure doesn’t take into account those delivered by the candidates and parties themselves, you begin to see why some people would rather not have their letter boxes clogged up.

The Electoral Register

So how do political parties and candidates find out where to send their campaign literature? The answer is the Electoral Register, which contains the names and addresses of people who are registered to vote. There are two versions of the Electoral Register, those being the Full Register and the Open Register.

The Full Register includes the names and addresses of everyone who has registered to vote. Aside from registering to vote anonymously for those who are vulnerable, there is no way to opt out of this if you are registered to vote. This version of the register is not publicly available.

Meanwhile, the Open Register is a version of the Register that is available for a fee to any person, business or organisation. Being on this register may be how you end up with plenty of junk mail through your door! When registering to vote, you can opt out of the Open Register, although the default option when registering is to be on this version of the register.

When it comes to elections, though, it is the Full Register that dictates whether parties will contact you through direct deliveries. This is because political parties, candidates and registered campaigners are entitled to receive the latest copy of the Full Register when it comes to election time. Importantly, they are also entitled to receive a ‘marked’ register which highlights what previous elections people have voted in, although of course not who they have voted for, allowing them to better target voters.

Write to the parties, but don’t hold your breath

For those who want to stop leaflets from coming through their door, an option is to write to the political parties to tell them to stop sending post personally addressed to them. The issue here is that it is rarely the national party that is sending the literature, it will be the local branch of the party, so you would need to contact them as well. Even then, this may not prevent the delivery of unaddressed leaflets that are delivered to all households in the area, either by local volunteers or paid delivery firms. Parties are also not obliged to stop sending you literature through Freepost mailing they may be entitled to at election times.

Another logical step would be to block junk mail with Royal Mail. However, the Freepost leaflets delivered by Royal Mail on behalf of candidates are not classified as junk mail. Therefore, taking this step, which would be great if you wanted to stop window cleaning leaflets, won’t necessarily prevent campaign literature from coming through your letterbox, especially as unaddressed leaflets from political parties are often not delivered by Royal Mail.

Junk mail and the Representation of the People Bill

With the imminent passage of the Representation of the People Bill, the way we get onto the Electoral Register is likely to change. This bill aims to improve our democracy by introducing votes at 16, changing political finance rules and expanding the forms of recognised voter ID. Part of the bill involves exploring Automatic Voter Registration which is likely to lead to changes in the process of registering to vote. In relation to campaign literature the most important change is the shift around the Open Register.

Instead of the current system, where we have to opt out of the Open Register, changes in the Representation of the People Bill mean that when registering people will automatically not appear in the Open register and would have to opt-in if they wanted to. The removal of this presumption means that voters will have increased control over their own personal data all while still being able to play their part in the democratic process.

While this won’t mean that you will receive less campaign literature from parties or candidates, it may mean that you are potentially likely to receive less junk mail, although we won’t hold our breath yet!

Support the Electoral Reform Society

If you join the Society as a member, your contributions will support our work in parliament like this, as well as in the press and online – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.

Join the Electoral Reform Society today

Written by Thomas Worth

While the focus has been on the 30 councils who saw their elections delayed and then undelayed at short notice, it might be easy to miss some of the positive changes coming up for local elections. The 2026 local elections look promising when it comes to new democratic innovations.

The government has partnered with 4 local authorities across the country to launch flexible voting pilots. These councils, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, North Hertfordshire and Tunbridge Wells, will allow voters to try out new ways to cast their ballots, in schemes designed to inform future decisions about how we all vote.

Early voting trials

For people with busy lives or complex caring responsibilities, it can be hard to get to the polling station. What if there were more options?

For Cambridge, North Hertfordshire and Tunbridge Wells, this will take the form of early voting in hubs. This means that voters will have the option to go to a central hub, rather than their assigned polling station, and will be able to cast their vote in the days preceding election day on Thursday, 7th May.

This will include the weekend, allowing voters to cast their ballot at a time that fits their schedule. In town picking up some shopping? Why not pop in and cast your ballot. The hubs themselves will take the form of centrally located notable buildings in the local area, for example, the Guildhall in Cambridge.

This is not the first time similar schemes have been piloted in the UK. In May 2022, Wales piloted early voting, with a report into the findings of the pilot being published a few months later. The report found promising results with 1.5% of voters turning out early in Bridgend, where 20 polling stations allowed early voting in traditionally low turnout wards.

Outside of the UK, early voting is a common practice. In fact, the government identifies 60 countries in which some voters are allowed to vote before election day. Recent years have shown how impactful early voting can be in terms of turnout, giving voters a better chance to have their say in crucial elections.

In Canada, the 2025 Federal Election saw unprecedented levels of early voting, with 7.3 million people voting in advance out of the 19.6 million who voted. This election also saw a large increase in turnout, helped by the flexibility afforded to voters.

Findings from elections in New Zealand also follow a similar pattern. A study of early voting in the 2017 New Zealand election found that early voting increased turnout by 7.6%. Crucially, early voting was found to be most effective in increasing turnout in areas with ‘low turnout culture’, with the study concluding that early voting is one way in helping to attract population groups that do not vote.

New central voting locations

In Milton Keynes, the scheme will also take the form of a central voting hub where voters can choose to vote in the city’s main shopping centre. However, they will not be able to vote in advance of election day.

Say you were planning on voting on the way into town, but are delayed? Residents of Milton Keynes will have the option to pop out at lunch and vote centrally or try and vote at their normal polling station on the way home.

This pilot will give voters, who live busy modern lives, the opportunity to have their say in a more convenient and accessible way, something the ERS has called for in the past.

Voting Should Fit Around our Modern Lives

This, therefore, is an important pilot, with the government itself acknowledging that the way we vote at the polling booth has not changed since 1872. The schemes being trialled better reflect the realities of modern living and will give voters a better chance to engage with democracy. Importantly, similar schemes have already achieved positive results both at home and abroad and will help to improve the health of our democracy if rolled out more widely.

While these pilots are welcome, it is crucial that the government engages with the findings of the report, due to be published in the latter half of 2026. Similar pilots occurred from 2000 to 2007, including trials of electronic voting and early voting. After years of trials, the government ultimately failed to decide on a future direction for early voting. Instead, they merely acknowledged the call from the Electoral Commission for it to come to a decision about implementing early voting and delayed a decision.

While these trials may be limited this year, we hope that in the future, both early and hub voting will be rolled out more widely across the UK so that voters are given more opportunities to play their part in the democratic process. Ultimately, voting needs to be built around people’s lives; time constraints should not prevent people from exercising their democratic right.

Support the Electoral Reform Society

If you join the Society as a member, your contributions will support our work in parliament like this, as well as in the press and online – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.

Join the Electoral Reform Society Today

Written by Thomas Worth

The results of the 2024 General Election were the most disproportional in British political history. The current Labour government was elected on just 33.7% of the vote, but took 63.2% of the seats, while smaller parties like Reform UK and the Greens won less than 2% of the seats between them on a combined 21% of the vote. Numbers like these lay bare how unsuitable First Past the Post is in an era of multi-party politics.

While the disconnect between the percentage of votes and the number of seats won is a clear signifier of a broken electoral system, there are other metrics that can be used to measure the ineffectiveness of First Past the Post.

What is the Effective Number of Parties (ENP)?

This brings us to the concept of the Effective Number of Parties (ENP). This tool was developed by the political scientists Markku Laakso and Rein Taagepera in 1979 as a measure designed to analyse the political fragmentation of a chosen political system. Rather than just a count of all the parties within a system, the ENP calculates the weighted number of parties that matter within a system. This can be done either in terms of their vote share (the Effective Number of Electoral Parties or ENEP) or on seat share (the Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties or ENPP).

It is important to note that the figure does not represent the actual number of parties within a system but is instead a measure of fragmentation. Taking Canada as a recent example, the Effective Number of Electoral Parties after the 2025 Federal Election was 2.70, while the Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties sat at 2.36. This means that electorally, the party system is as fragmented as if there were 2.70 equally sized parties.

This concept allows us to compare political fragmentation across countries and is a method frequently employed by political scientists. The ENP also provides us with a useful tool to understand how electoral systems constrain political parties and limit the number of those who, while being electorally significant, gain representation in the legislature.

Fragmentation in the UK

Turning to the UK, the disproportionality of our electoral system is laid bare by the difference between our ENEP and our ENPP as per Michael Gallagher’s Election Indices. After the 2024 General Election, our ENEP stood at a mighty 4.76, the highest it has ever been. Only the 1918 General Election comes close to our current figure on an ENEP of 4.42. Meanwhile, our EPP stands at 2.24, the lowest since 2001 and significantly lower than 2019 despite the combined vote share of the major parties falling in 2024.

Supporters of the status quo claim that a benefit of the current system is that everyone votes either for the government or the opposition who are primed to replace them. Yet, electorally our political system is as fragmented as if there were 4.76 equally sized parties, something that should not occur under a ‘functioning’ First Past the Post system. The difference between our ENEP and ENPP clearly shows that First Past the Post can no longer account for how voters are expressing their electoral wishes.

Fragmentation around the world

When drawing comparisons with other countries, it is clear how poorly performing First Past the Post is in the UK. A functioning electoral system should have an ENEP and ENPP that are closely matched, meaning that seats broadly match votes and that parties are gaining representation based on their electoral performance. Countries using the proportional Single Transferable Vote, such as Malta, see much more alignment between their ENEP and ENPP. Malta has one of the closest of any democratic state with an ENEP of 2.09 and ENPP of 1.97 in 2022. Meanwhile, Denmark, using D’Hondt party-list PR, had an ENEP of 7.57 and an ENPP of 7.24 in 2022.

What these cases show is that the system of First Past the Post in the UK is no longer functioning effectively as the gap between our ENEP and ENPP has been growing ever wider, meaning that as the electorate increasingly fragments, our system is failing to reflect their preferences. Meanwhile, more proportional systems are able to cope with fragmentation and see close alignment between the number of electoral and parliamentary parties.

New Zealand’s journey to proportional representation

This should be an impetus for change, and the Effective Number of Parties also provides case studies which can give electoral reformers hope. Evidence suggests that as the ENEP increases, the likelihood of electoral reform increases due to the pressures fragmentation places on a disproportional electoral system. People start voting for more parties, which leads to proportional representation, not the other way around.

The prime example of this is New Zealand, a country often lauded by proponents of electoral reform for its shift from First Past the Post to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) known as the Additional Member System (AMS) in the UK. The ENEP of New Zealand steadily rose before the changes were implemented in 1996, with fragmentation creating pressure for reform. From a low point of an ENEP of 1.99 in 1951, by the time of the referendum on electoral reform in 1993, the ENEP stood at a high 3.52. The ENPP, meanwhile, failed to match the increase with First Past the Post, continually providing disproportional results. 1993 was a particularly bad year, with the ENPP standing at only 2.16.

After switching to MMP, the ENEP and ENPP are now closely aligned, standing at 4.10 and 3.81, respectively, in 2023. What this proves is that a shift towards a more proportional system will allow the increasing political fragmentation of our party system, which is higher than in New Zealand under MMP, to be better reflected in Parliament.

Therefore, in order to achieve a closer alignment between the effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties, it is crucial that the UK learns from the lessons of New Zealand and begins to reform the electoral system in order to remedy the growing disconnect between how people are voting and how they are represented in parliament.

Add your name to our call for proportional representation

Add your name today

This article is a guest post by Ralph Hall, previously Coordinator of the National Coalition for Proportional Representation, who has also held a range of other electoral system roles in both the UK and New Zealand.

Tasmanian voters will have the benefit of using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) on Saturday in this Australian state election. The Tasmanian House of Assembly has used STV to elect all seats since 1907, the longest continuous use of STV for any legislature around the world.

STV is a form of proportional representation created in Britain, which the Electoral Reform Society has long supported. In Tasmania they call it the Hare-Clark system after the British founder of STV Thomas Hare and the Tasmanian STV advocate Andrew Inglis Clark.

Tasmania is the only one of Australia’s six states to use STV for lower house elections. In Australia’s Federal Parliament and in most states, STV is used for upper house elections, with Alternative Vote (AV) used for lower house elections. In Tasmania this is flipped, with STV used for the lower house and AV used for the upper house.

Outside of Australia, STV is also used for legislatures in Ireland, Malta and Northern Ireland and for all local elections in Scotland and some local elections in New Zealand and the United States.

STV involves voters ranking candidates that run in multi-member constituencies. Because multiple candidates are elected in each constituency, STV allows for a much more proportional outcome than the winner takes all First Past the Post (FPTP) which caused such a disproportionate result at the last UK General Election. Under STV, voters are very likely to have voted for at least one of the people elected, whereas in the UK General Election under FPTP 57.8% of voters are unrepresented in the UK House of Commons.

The Tasmanian election on Saturday is for 35 seats across five constituencies that each elect seven members. Voters in each of these five constituencies rank at least their top 7 candidates.
Multiple candidates can stand from each party, with their order on the voting paper randomised using what is known in Australia as the Robson Rotation. This randomised order ensures that voters have more control over which candidates from each party are elected.

The few opinion polls that have been done during the campaign have slightly different results, although all suggest that no one party will win a majority of the 35 seats. One poll had the Opposition Labor Party likely to win the most seats but most others suggest the incumbent Liberal Government will get more support. In all polls the Green Party look to have similar support to the last election when they won 14% of the seats on 14% of the first preference votes. Polling also shows that independents are likely to benefit from the decision by the populist Jacqui Lambi Network to not run candidates.

Whatever the outcome, voters can be confident that their voting preferences will be properly represented in the Tasmanian House of Assembly because of the STV system.

Rob Richie is the co-founder and senior advisor to FairVote, a sister organisation to the Electoral Reform Society. FairVote is a nonpartisan organisation in America, campaigning for better elections for all, working to make ‘Ranked Choice Voting’ (RCV) – what is known as the Alternative Vote in the UK – the voting system for all American elections. They have succeeded in changing the voting system for some public elections in 50 cities, counties, and states to date.

It was an astounding summer in American politics. We witnessed the conviction of Republican candidate Donald Trump in a New York court, as well as his attempted assassination, and President Joe Biden announced that he would drop his re-election bid after a faltering debate performance. Vice President Kamala Harris then locked down what could have been an open process to pick a nominee at the party’s convention. Democrats quickly nominated her in virtual vote of delegates to their national convention.

What this means for the American system, and for election reform advocates, is complicated. Let’s walk through the lessons from this experience.

The Party Still Decides – But Barely

Unlike the international norm, American parties generally turn over their nomination processes to voters through primary elections. For presidential nominations, it involves contests across 57 states and territories that select delegates who, in turn, pick the nominee at a summer convention.

Throughout the 20th century, both parties reformed their nominating processes to infuse new energy and provide opportunities for voters to participate directly through primaries funded and administered by the government. Over time, though, the primary system has broken down badly. Participation is low, voters are increasingly polarized, and most candidates need only focus on their party base at the expense of swing voters – the opposite of the UK’s problem where parties solely focus on “marginal constituencies” and not those in “safe seats.” A constitutional system designed to promote compromise now clashes with an electoral system that discourages it.

Trump’s capture of the Republican Party is instructive. As the businessman and television personality entered the Republican presidential primary in 2016, he had never run for office, and had a long history of giving donations to candidates from both parties – including Kamala Harris. But tied to his celebrity and populist agenda reminiscent of Brexit, Trump dominated media coverage in a fractured field. With less than half the vote in the primaries, he became the presumptive nominee. Despite controversies, talk of a convention rebellion went nowhere.

With Trump’s win against Hillary Clinton in the general election, Republicans’ decision to accept Trump’s takeover seemed validated even though Trump lost the popular vote. Then in 2018, Republicans lost control of the U.S. House, and in 2020, they lost the presidency and Senate as well. In 2022, they lost even more ground in the Senate.

Unsurprisingly, many Republicans were interested in a new nominee to lead their party in 2024, but their leaders were too weak to stop the Trump movement. The party’s base rallied around Trump even as he faced numerous criminal indictments.

The Democrats acted differently – but just barely. In 2020, their version of a Trump takeover was embodied by Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent U.S. Senator who briefly became the frontrunner after early primary wins. Influential Democrats pressured several moderate candidates to drop out and consolidate around Biden – rescuing Biden’s candidacy, which had faltered badly in the opening contests. Biden won the South Carolina primary, then nearly swept the “Super Tuesday” contests after the withdrawals of similarly moderate candidates – and won in November.

Biden initially sought re-election this year, and despite concerns about his age and favorability (which was never above 45% after August 2021), potential challengers held back. It was only Biden’s debate performance that turned party activists, donors, and elected officials against him – and even then, the decision was seen as being up to Biden.

How America Compares to the UK

Parties tossing out unpopular leaders and picking new ones is more common in Britain than in the U.S. The UK only has primaries to the extent that parties let members participate in leadership contests, with far lower rates of participation and a much heavier hand of party leaders. Yet a shift like the one from Biden to Harris in barely 24 hours would be inconceivable.

What Reformers Did – and Plans for the Future

The American focus on executive offices makes election reform of single-winner offices important, even for reformers like FairVote that ultimately seek proportional representation. FairVote has elevated ranked choice voting (RCV), the American name for the Alternative Vote. Although still facing hurdles, RCV is the nation’s fastest-growing electoral reform, winning in two states and 27 straight city ballot measures. This November, RCV will be on the ballot in four states and Washington, D.C.

Presidential elections draw attention to the value of RCV due to increasing odds of crowded fields in primaries and “spoiler” third parties in November. This summer’s upheaval in the Democratic Party created new opportunities. FairVote conducted polling of swing state voters, using RCV to gauge their preferred alternatives to Biden, which drew great interest among Democrats and the press. Backers of a “blitz primary”,  and FairVote in my widely-published commentary, suggested that using RCV in an open convention would be the best way to avoid a long, drawn-out series of repeated votes. Harris’s quick consolidation of the field has put an end to such hypothesizing, yet there is now greater interest in using RCV to nominate future candidates for president.

What comes next

Barring more surprises, Harris will have a tight race against Trump. The contest will likely revert to focus on only seven “swing states”. Similarly, control of the U.S. Senate will come down to only seven contests that mostly overlap with the presidential swing states, and control of the U.S. House will come down to just 40 races out of 435.

In this era of polarized politics, winner-take-all voting rules make most Americans nervous spectators and symbolic participants in the choice of their government’s leaders – despite these elections’ great implications for democracy in the United States and the world.

Become a member of the Electoral Reform Society today from just £2 a month

This 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 democratic deficit, public trust in politicians is at an all-time low, and voter turnout statistics reflect this. The number of Welsh residents that voted at the 2021 Senedd election was only 46.8%. Although this was the highest turnout of a Senedd election, it missed the 50% target that many hoped for.

In a bid to engage the public in politics from a young age, the Senedd voted to extend the voting age in Wales to 16 and 17 year olds, following Scotland where the franchise was extended for the referendum on independence back in 2014. One of the aims of this was to increase awareness through secondary school education to improve the political knowledge of all future voters.

This was first implemented in the 2021 election of the Senedd. However, while we lack data on exactly how many 16 and 17 year olds turned out to vote, roughly 46% of 16-17 year olds registered to vote – approximately 30,000 out of an estimated 65,000 – for the Senedd elections. Nottingham Trent University conducted extensive research into why this was the case and how to engage more young people in the future, providing several recommendations including:

• Ensure all schools and colleges have dedicated time and space for political education and benefit from a systematic rollout of voter engagement.
• Remove practical barriers for young people to turn out and vote, such as classes and assessments.
• Make a long-term investment into the political engagement of young people through mandated political education and creating spaces to express political opinions in schools and colleges.

In an ERS Cymru Report published in 2018, we called for several changes to increase young people’s engagement with democracy. We recommended statutory political education lessons that explain democracy, political parties, institutions and campaigning; an online resource for people to find out about candidates standing in elections and more digestible manifestos; a national mock election for young people to be held at the same time as Senedd elections.

The theme of Welcome to Your Vote Week is ‘Our Democracy’ and the aim is to show young people the relevance of politics and the impacts of democracy on their day-to-day lives. The Electoral Commission has created a variety of online resources targeted at 14-18 year olds who want to find out more about their democratic right to vote and resources for educators who want support to teach democracy impartially.

There are also positive signs from Welsh Government around improving democratic education and voter information. Their recent White Paper on Electoral Administration and Reform included proposals to improve political education in schools and establish a new platform where information could be provided to voters. Jeremy Miles MS – Minister for Education and the Welsh Language – has announced several grants to further political awareness of young people, one of which is the democratic engagement grant.

With the new nationwide Curriculum for Wales being rolled out currently, there is no better time for democratic education to be interwoven into every student’s core education. We have the opportunity to build on the turnout from the 2021 Senedd elections and encourage first-time voter participation by providing political education in schools, reassuring young people that their voices can and should be heard.

This article was written by Tamar Knight, who has been on work placement with ERS Cymru

This is a guest post from James Skibinski, who is involved in New South Wales politics on a grassroots level. He tweets @SkibinskiJames.

In the closing days of 2021, I braved the scorch of the blistering Australian summer sun, walking through the streets of a leafy Sydney suburb and dropping flyers into letterboxes for the Sutherland Shire Council local elections. It was an experience entirely different to English local government elections – rather than using the broken First Past the Post system, here in New South Wales (NSW) we elect our councillors through proportional representation and specifically the Single Transferable Vote (STV).

This is a guest post by Maddy Dhesi, an 18 years old ERS member living in North Wales. 

The Queen’s Speech on the 17th May outlined the UK Government’s plans to implement Voter ID in UK elections. In Wales, the proposed bill would make it mandatory for Welsh people voting in the UK General Election and Police and Crime Commissioner elections to provide photo ID in order to vote. 

For those with ID, requiring it for voting could feel like merely an issue of  remembering to bring your ID along to the polling station on election day. But what if you can’t afford a photo ID?

Under the 18 year-old national minimum wage, it would cost a young voter just under a full day of work to be able to afford a Provisional license application and over 12 hours of work in order to finance a new passport (which can cost up to £85). As well as being costly, passports can take up to ten weeks to be delivered. Though provisional driving licence applications are said to be processed and sent within a week, the initial online form is followed by a few days’ wait for a paper form, which is followed by a trip to the supermarket and an additional £6 cost for ID pictures. This process also takes longer when the licences are in demand. Furthermore, these ID photographs then need to be verified by a Civil Servant. 

This is accessible for some young people still in school but there are no restrictions on verifiers charging for the service and some people may find it difficult to find somebody to verify their picture. The GOV.UK website even suggests asking your local Member of Parliament or Senedd Member to verify your identity. Personally, I would much rather be asking my local MP to oppose the voter ID restrictions than to verify my identity in order to grant me access to vote.

The UK Government suggest they are proposing these rules in order to curb the threat of fraud in elections. However, even Minister Matt Hancock admitted there were only six cases of ballot fraud in the 2019 election. The scheme is forecasted to increase the cost of General Elections by up to £20,000,000 – a heavy price with high consequences for such a low threat.

Northern Ireland brought in  voter ID due to high levels of documented voter fraud in 1987 and also allows a free Electoral Identity Card for those who cannot afford Photo ID. The application process – whilst it requires either the cost of travelling in person to obtain a free card or the cost of taking a passport appropriate photo – is relatively simple and affordable in comparison to passport and driving licence IDs. However, it is estimated that over 3.5 million people in the UK do not have photo ID, twice Northern Ireland’s whole population, and implementing a scheme to provide something similar to Northern Ireland’s electoral card would carry great costs when there is no evidence of a major problem with fraud. . 

The pilot scheme for Voter ID in 2019 reported over 1000 voters being refused a vote and not returning to vote again. With access to photo ID carrying a racial disparity – whilst over three quarters of White people are reported to have at least one type of photo ID, only 48% of Black people and 31% of Asian people can say the same. Rejected voters are therefore more likely to be people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, creating an electoral system that is more of a reflection of the UK’s White population whilst excluding ethnic minority groups that are already barely represented in the House of Commons, with only 10% of the 650 MPs coming from an ethnic minority background. Wales only has three MSs in the Senedd and currently no  MPs in Parliament from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds . Voter ID laws will only worsen this underrepresentation.

Without a free and accessible electoral identity card scheme, that is as easy to apply for as it is to register to vote, everything that is required to obtain a photo ID is finicky and time consuming. Lengthening the process it takes to vote will ostracise the young voters that are needed for a representative democracy. In Wales our recent election turnouts have ranged from 66.6% in the 2019 General Election to 46.6% in the 2021 Senedd election. Undeniably, effort is needed to bring voters to the polls. Why disillusion voters by making the process costly and difficult?

The Senedd expanded the electorate to include 16 and 17 year olds in the May Senedd elections, which led to our highest turnout in twenty years. Positive changes are being enacted – especially with the Senedd looking to increase the number of seats from 60. Contrastingly, the UK Government’ proposed boundary changes remove 8 of Wales’ 40 seats in the House of Commons and expand England’s 533 seats to 543. This would leave Wales represented by under 5% of seats in a parliament that controls key aspects of Welsh life (ranging from policing to foreign affairs). 

Lack of minority representation, low electoral turnout, and Welsh underrepresentation means we should be widening access to our democracy. Gatekeeping it further should not be the future Welsh youth inherit. The pandemic has seen young people sacrifice a lot and the end of the pandemic brings a valuable opportunity to build on young people’s increased community participation and knowledge of politics – voter ID would curb the progress made and squander the opportunity to improve the democratic engagement with young people in politics.

This highly contentious bill carries bleak consequences for the future of Welsh democracy that Welsh young people such as myself will inherit.

Sign our petition to defend your right to vote

This is a guest post from Stephen Kinnock MP, based on his contribution to last week’s Westminster Hall debate on overhauling Britain’s out-dated campaign finance rules. The debate was initiated by Damian Collins MP. 

The Elections Bill – introduced to the Commons on Monday – does not reflect the seriousness of the challenges our democracy faces from dark and dirty money, which has the potential to fundamentally corrupt our democratic system.

The five new measures it introduces are third-party campaigner registration; restriction of third-party campaigning; a ban on simultaneously registering as a political party and a third party; restrictions on co-ordinated spending between political parties and third parties; and the requirement for new political parties to declare assets and liabilities.

These are the right measures in terms of their focus, and they are broadly a step in the right direction, but they are simply not robust enough and do not go far enough.

For far too long, we have taken our democracy for granted. We have been complacent, and our complacency has allowed malign forces to subvert our rules and undermine our institutions. It is not just a British phenomenon, of course. Dark money and dirty data are a real and present threat right across the west.

The work that I have been doing over the past few years in my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group, in partnership with FairVote, has been to focus on British democracy and on how we can ensure that we have our own house in order, with a system of election finance regulation that is resilient to hostile threats and fit for the 21st century.

Let us be absolutely clear: there is a real problem with election finance. The Electoral Commission was established at a time when political campaigning centred around door-knocking and leafleting. It is an analogue regulator in a digital age. Digital campaigning and online political engagement have revolutionised politics, so it is critical that the commission is given the tools and resources it needs to make it fit for purpose in the 21st century.

Crucially, the Electoral Commission recognises that. Its leadership has openly acknowledged that the commission lacks resources and bite. Paltry maximum fines of £20,000 are just the cost of doing business for some of the very wealthy funders we are dealing with, while a lack of prosecuting power means there is little deterrence for those who are all too ready to break the law.

It gives us confidence to hear from the Committee on Standards in Public Life report that: “The majority of contributors expressed confidence in the Commission as an independent, non-partisan regulator, including those who see room for improvement in how the Commission carries out its role.”

The committee is right to say that. Although some have called for the abolition of the Electoral Commission, and draft legislation has called for taking away its independence and prosecutorial powers, the aim of the forthcoming electoral integrity Bill should be to give the Electoral Commission the resources and power it needs to tackle the threats to our democracy, as outlined in the CSPL’s report.

It is deeply concerning that, for the first time, a majority of the members of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission are from the governing party. That is deeply unfortunate, as independence can be ensured only if cross-party consensus is maintained.

We urge changes to be made to return confidence in the Speaker’s Committee and its governance role in this context. As the CSPL’s report makes clear: “An electoral system needs to be demonstrably fair and to command the confidence of political parties and the public and must be overseen by a strong independent regulator.”

Our all-parliamentary group’s report makes 20 recommendations across three specific areas, based on evidence from 70 different organisations and experts. Focusing specifically on campaign finance regulation, we said that the Elections Bill needs to be amended according to the following recommendations. All donations should be regulated “by reducing permissibility check requirements from £500 to 1p for all non-cash donations”.

Among other proposals, we argue corporate donations should only come from profits reported in the UK.

Over the past year, we have sought to gain support in Parliament, and we are looking to lobby the Government, as well as those in Cardiff and Holyrood. We continue to make progress on those fronts.

However, I want to finish by saying this: all around the world, democracy is in retreat. Authoritarian regimes outnumber democracies for the first time since 2001 and they are on the rise. Britain must be at the forefront of the fight to defend democracy and to stand up for human rights and international law.

If we are to be effective and credible in working with our allies to do that, we must start by defending democracy at home—we must get our own house in order. It is our job to build processes, systems and institutions that inspire trust.

It is our job to clear away the fake news, the dodgy data and the dirty money that is polluting our system. It is our job to save our precious democracy and to safeguard it for future generations. Our most dangerous enemy is complacency, and I will continue to work with colleagues across the House to make sure that Parliament is complacent no longer.

Sign the ERS’ petition to close the ‘dark ads’ loophole now