Local elections are an important part of democracy in Wales. But did you know that thousands of voters have a councillor that nobody voted for at all?

Due to the Westminster-style First Past the Post system (FPTP) used to elect councillors, a scourge of uncontested seats is damaging Welsh local democracy. An uncontested seat occurs where the number of candidates matches the number of seats up for election in a ward. When this happens, those candidates automatically become councillors, without local people in that area casting a single vote.

At the 2022 Welsh local elections, over 100,000 potential voters were denied the chance to cast a ballot due to these uncontested seats. Nine of the 22 Welsh council areas had at least one uncontested seat. Across the country, 74 candidates became councillors without voters having a say. This means 6% of all Welsh councillors taking their place following the 2022 local elections did not have to face the scrutiny of the ballot box.

Why do uncontested seats exist?

It might seem odd that nobody stood against these 74 candidates. Some would argue this is due to a lack of people coming forward to stand as councillors, but the reality is that the way we elect our councillors is the biggest culprit.

We know this because when we change the system, the problem all but disappears.

First Past the Post is an all-or-nothing system. Challenger candidates can put in weeks of work and win substantial shares of the vote but get nowhere at all. The barrier to winning election is just too high to make it worth trying.

But a lack of competition is not healthy for anyone. When uncontested seats become the norm, how are voters supposed to express their views? Years can pass without any input from the public.

What can we do to make every election competitive?

We have practical evidence from Scotland regarding what happened to uncontested seats when local authorities stop using First Past the Post. At their local elections in 2007 they rolled out a new voting system, the Single Transferable Vote (STV). At the final Scottish local elections using First Past the Post, held in 2003, there were 61 uncontested seats (5% of the total seats) but in the first two sets of Scottish local elections held under STV, there were zero uncontested seats. Although there have been a small number of uncontested seats at the two most recent sets of Scottish local elections, these are still at a much lower level than occurred under FPTP local elections in Scotland and which continue to occur in Wales.

Uncontested seats are much reduced under STV because councillors are elected in multi-member wards that ensure candidates have a genuine chance of being elected if they are able to garner a reasonable level of support among the local community. This means that even in areas where one party might be dominant, there is an incentive for other parties or independents to put forward candidates.

Welsh councils can follow Scotland and adopt the Single Transferable Vote

Gwynedd, Powys and Ceredigion are about to consult residents on a potential switch to STV, and all are near the top of the table for uncontested seats in 2022. In Gwynedd, a staggering 28 councillors (41% of the total) took their place without a vote being cast. In Powys, there were 7 uncontested seats (10% of the total) and there were 5 uncontested seats in Ceredigion (13% of the total). A change to STV in these councils would bring back competitive elections in wards    across Wales, giving voters a say once again.

There are many other reasons why a change to STV would benefit Welsh residents, not least in ensuring that the composition of local councils better reflects the way people actually vote in local elections. For example, under STV, it would be very unlikely that a party could win 70% of seats on a council, with just 47% of the votes, as Labour were able to do in Cardiff at the 2022 local elections. Similarly, Plaid Cymru won 60% of the seats, with 41% of the votes, in Ynys Mon.

The Welsh Democracy Deadline

A window of opportunity exists between now and 15 November 2024, for individual Welsh local councils to switch to using STV for their local authority elections. For this change to take place in time for the next set of local elections, in 2027, two-thirds of councillors on a local authority will have to vote in favour of the change at a formal council meeting.

Three councils (Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Powys) will soon begin public consultations, where they will seek the views of local residents on a potential switch of systems, before councillors make the final decision via votes in their council chambers.

We’ve made a tool so that people can easily contact their councillors in support of moving to the Single Transferable Vote. You can find it here.

It is time for these three councils and all the other councils in Wales to make the switch to STV, a move that will help energise local democracy in the country.

Add your name to our call for councils in Wales to ditch First Past the Post

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Following the publication of candidate notices for the May 2023 English local elections, it is clear that the scourge of uncontested and guaranteed seats will once again limit the democratic choices of hundreds of thousands of voters.

Seats so safe, no election happens

Across 34 wards the number of candidates matches the number of seats up for election, meaning no election will take place. This means forty-six councillors will be elected without a single vote being cast. Across these wards, around 90,000 voters have been denied any say in who will represent them on the local council.

This dire situation is a direct result of the First Past The Post system used for English local elections. Just as with UK general elections, the system produces many safe seats, where one party will hold a seat for decades, despite other parties often garnering considerable support in the area. As a result, at local government level, there are some places where parties feel it is not worth the effort and expense of standing candidates. The same phenomenon was in evidence at the Welsh local elections of 2022.

In one local authority alone, East Lindsey in Lincolnshire, thirteen candidates will take their place in the council chamber without having to win a single vote. Around 25,000 voters in that district will have no opportunity to go to the polling station on 4^th May and register their opinion on how services in their local area should be run.

However people vote, 70 seats are guaranteed

As well as the council seats that will be won without any votes being cast, there are a further 70 seats that are guaranteed to go to a particular party, across 64 wards. Although there will be voting in these wards, the small number of opposition candidates means that at least one seat is guaranteed to go to a particular party. While not as egregious as seats that are won completely uncontested, this still represents a restriction of democratic choice that will affect around 315,000 voters across these wards.

Uncontested seats are a political choice

It does not have to be this way. Since the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system was introduced for Scottish local elections in 2007, there has been a dramatic fall in the number of councillors elected without a vote taking place. STV is the Electoral Reform Society’s preferred system of proportional representation. It places power in the hands of the voters by letting them rank candidates in order of preference and it produces proportional outcomes that mean public opinion is represented much better than it is at local elections in England. It also makes it worthwhile for parties to stand candidates and give voters a genuine choice across the vast majority of electoral areas (the Scottish equivalent of wards).

*This research is based on analysis of Democracy Club data.

It is time for England to follow Scotland’s lead and implement STV for local elections

Please sign our petition for fair local elections

Next week, on Thursday, 2 May, voters in many parts of England will go to the polls to elect their local representatives. Elections will take place in urban metropolitan boroughs, unitary authorities and district councils, which tend to be more suburban and rural in nature. In all regions of England apart from London there are some elections taking place.

Come polling day, however, there are around 280,000 would-be voters who will be disenfranchised. These people live in wards where councillors will be chosen without a single vote being cast. In these wards not enough candidates have been nominated, so no election is necessary. This means candidates will be appointed as members of local authorities without facing any electoral challenge.

There may well be fine individuals amongst the 148 councillors who will take up their role without facing scrutiny at the ballot box. However, it cannot be good for local residents to have representatives imposed on them without the opportunity to express a preference for an alternative.

In addition to these 148 uncontested seats, a further 152 council seats are guaranteed for one party or another before any voting has taken place. This is because of a lack of competition in some multi-member wards, where more than one councillor is up for election. For example, in a ward where three councillors will be elected, if one party puts up three candidates but two other parties put up only one candidate each, the first party is guaranteed to win at least one of the seats in the ward. Around 580,000 potential voters live in wards such as these, where their democratic choices will be restricted.

Overall, before a single vote has been cast, 300 council seats across England are guaranteed to particular candidates or parties, with around 850,000 would-be voters living in wards where they are either denied a vote completely or where their choice will be constrained by a lack of candidates (see Figure 1). This does not look much like democracy and especially not a vibrant one.

Figure 1: Total uncontested and guaranteed seats by region

Note: Electorate sizes should be treated as estimates. For most of the wards, ERS researchers used Boundary Commission for England data from 2015. Where there was evidence that there have been boundary changes in a council since 2015, we have used figures from the most recent Local Government Boundary Commission for England review for that local authority.

This democratic deficit is a long-running sore at the heart of local government in England, where these uncontested and under-contested seats have been a feature of local elections for decades. A key reason for this lack of competition is the voting system. As in UK general elections, the first-past-the-post (FPTP), winner-takes-all system is used and, as with parliamentary constituencies, this means many council wards are seen as ‘safe’ for one party or another. In some places, parties or candidates conclude there is little incentive to invest time and money contesting wards where their chances of winning are perceived to be very small. It is important to note that in these ‘safe’ wards there is highly likely to be substantial support for parties and candidates not belonging to the dominant party, just not enough support to make victory likely under FPTP.

Evidence from other parts of the UK indicates that there is a very simple solution to the problem of local representatives being appointed without election. In Scotland, the single transferrable vote (STV) electoral system was introduced for local elections in 2007 and since then uncontested seats have been virtually eliminated at a local level. STV is used to elect councils in Northern Ireland as well, where local elections will also take place on 2 May. Here voters do not face uncontested seats in any of the 11 local councils.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, they use the single transferrable vote electoral system and uncontested seats have been virtually eliminated Click To Tweet

STV  is a system where a small team of representatives (3–5 councillors is ideal for local elections) are elected to represent an area. Voters number candidates in order of preference on the ballot and can rank as many or as few candidates as they wish. To get elected, a candidate needs to win a set amount of votes, known as the quota, which is based on the number of seats available and the number of votes cast. Any candidate who reaches the quota is elected. However, rather than ignore extra votes a candidate receives above the amount they need to win, these votes are re-allocated to these voters’ second-preference candidates. If no candidate reaches the winning quota, then the least popular candidate is eliminated, and their votes are re-allocated to voters’ second-preference candidates. This process continues until every vacancy is filled.

This approach drastically reduces the number of wasted votes, which in turn increases voter choice by making it worthwhile for a wider range of parties and candidates to stand in all areas because the votes they receive are much more likely to be turned into the tangible reward of elected representatives, rather than being wasted if the party doesn’t come first. The system is also fairer, in that it ensures that local council representation more closely matches the support that parties and candidates receive at the ballot box than is the case under the FPTP system.

Wales is also considering introducing  STV for its council elections, which means there is a real possibility that England will soon be the only part of the UK where uncontested seats continue to plague local democracy. Such a change to the voting system for English local elections would go a long way to ensuring that no voters are denied a genuine choice at the local ballot box and would provide a boost to democratic engagement at a local level.

This democratic deficit is a long-running sore at the heart of local government in England, where these uncontested and under-contested seats have been a feature of local elections for decades. A key reason for this lack of competition is the voting system. As in UK general elections, the first-past-the-post (FPTP), winner-takes-all system is used and, as with parliamentary constituencies, this means many council wards are seen as ‘safe’ for one party or another. In some places, parties or candidates conclude there is little incentive to invest time and money contesting wards where their chances of winning are perceived to be very small. It is important to note that in these ‘safe’ wards there is highly likely to be substantial support for parties and candidates not belonging to the dominant party, just not enough support to make victory likely under FPTP.

Evidence from other parts of the UK indicates that there is a very simple solution to the problem of local representatives being appointed without election. In Scotland, the single transferrable vote (STV) electoral system was introduced for local elections in 2007 and since then uncontested seats have been virtually eliminated at a local level. STV is used to elect councils in Northern Ireland as well, where local elections will also take place on 2 May. Here voters do not face uncontested seats in any of the 11 local councils.

STV  is a system where a small team of representatives (3–5 councillors is ideal for local elections) are elected to represent an area. Voters number candidates in order of preference on the ballot and can rank as many or as few candidates as they wish. To get elected, a candidate needs to win a set amount of votes, known as the quota, which is based on the number of seats available and the number of votes cast. Any candidate who reaches the quota is elected. However, rather than ignore extra votes a candidate receives above the amount they need to win, these votes are re-allocated to these voters’ second-preference candidates. If no candidate reaches the winning quota, then the least popular candidate is eliminated, and their votes are re-allocated to voters’ second-preference candidates. This process continues until every vacancy is filled.

This approach drastically reduces the number of wasted votes, which in turn increases voter choice by making it worthwhile for a wider range of parties and candidates to stand in all areas because the votes they receive are much more likely to be turned into the tangible reward of elected representatives, rather than being wasted if the party doesn’t come first. The system is also fairer, in that it ensures that local council representation more closely matches the support that parties and candidates receive at the ballot box than is the case under the FPTP system.

Wales is also considering introducing  STV for its council elections, which means there is a real possibility that England will soon be the only part of the UK where uncontested seats continue to plague local democracy. Such a change to the voting system for English local elections would go a long way to ensuring that no voters are denied a genuine choice at the local ballot box and would provide a boost to democratic engagement at a local level.

This article was originally posted on Democratic Audit. 

Voting is an essential part of democratic life – from Mayoral contests to Westminster elections. Yet in an alarming number of places next month, voters in Wales will be denied a vote.

That’s not because there aren’t elections happening – there are. It’s because in 92 local council seats, there’s only one candidate standing: which means there’s no ballot box. Those 92 candidates have won before polling day.

We estimate that 127,631 Welsh residents will be denied the vote in this year’s council elections, with swathes of councillors already being elected before a single vote is cast.

That’s almost 100 ‘democracy deserts’ which do voters and our politics a huge disservice.

This isn’t just a problem in one or to authorities. Half of Wales’ local authorities are returning councillors without opposition. In the worst-affected council area, Gwynedd, 25,270 voters will be denied a choice of candidate in the local elections.

It means local residents across Wales will not be able to express an opinion on the future of key services and council tax levels. In addition to the 92 one-candidate wards, one ward in Powys (Yscir) has not a single candidate. They will be totally unrepresented.

All this means that, sadly, Wales now accounts for the vast majority of uncontested seats in the UK – with Wales’ 92 uncontested seats figure comparing to just four for the whole of England in this round of elections.

Why does this matter? Local elections are one of the main opportunities for voters to have our say over services that affect our everyday lives.

But with nearly 130,000 people across Wales having no choice at the upcoming elections, that opportunity is being taken away for many of us. Welsh residents are being denied a voice – to the detriment of our democracy and our services.

There’s one fairly simple reason why: it is the symptom of a broken First Past the Post voting system, one which creates hundreds of safe seats, where other parties often don’t stand a chance of winning.

But it’s also the symptom of wider issues of political engagement in Wales which need tackling head on – from the need for votes at 16 and decent citizenship education to moving towards automatic voter registration and fair funding for political parties. Wales needs a wide-scale democratic revival.

This May’s elections will be the first since last June’s referendum, and with Article 50 being triggered at the end of March there has never been a more important time for people’s opinions about the future to be heard.

These figures are a damning indictment that the current system isn’t working. So the next step? Let’s remove the barriers to having an effective and representative democracy.

We need to look at the way politics works in Wales – including reforming the voting system for local elections so that no one is denied a voice.

In case you’re interested here are the 11 ‘democratic deserts’ in Wales:

*includes ward with no candidates

There has been a shocking increase in the number of uncontested seats in some English councils up for election this May. The Eden District Council in Cumbria has already declared 21 of its 38 available seats, meaning that a clear majority of the council (55%) has been returned before the election has even taken place. This is up from 50% of seats in 2011.

Similarly, in South Northamptonshire in the West Midlands a third of councillors will be returned uncontested. The appointment of councillors without any competition is bad for our democracy, as year after year electors are presented with no option as to who will represent them.

One of the major culprits in this sorry situation is the first past the post system for local elections in England and Wales. This system destroys the incentive to stand for election in ‘safe’ seats, and so deprives voters of a choice at the ballot box.

However, this problem has a clear solution. Scotland used to suffer from the problem of uncontested seats. This was eradicated by the introduction of Single Transferable Vote (STV) at local elections. Today, all council seats in Scotland are regularly contested, giving voters a real choice at the ballot box.

The urgency of this issue is shown by the actual increase of councillors being elected without opposition in certain areas of England. The number of unopposed councillors in South Staffordshire, for example, has leaped from three to fourteen since the last election.

The obvious and fair way to stop this blight on our democracy is through the introduction of STV at local elections in England and Wales. It has eliminated uncontested seats in Scotland, it can do it in England and Wales too.

How would you like to live in a one party state? You may wonder why anyone would ask given that this is the UK, not North Korea.  After all, we can all vote tomorrow if we choose to (or nearly all, at least).

But rather worryingly, this question is more relevant than it might seem.

According to Electoral Reform Society projections, in tomorrow’s local elections it’s likely that another 16 local councils will become utterly dominated by one party. They would join the 99 authorities in England and Wales where one party already has a huge majority of councillors (over 75%).

This has obvious problems. A council without effective opposition can be more prone to complacency, poor governance and corruption. And opposition parties can struggle to recruit active members, making it harder to put forward candidates and campaign at election time.

Yet despite these problems, by the end of tomorrow over 19 million people in England and Wales could well live under a council where one party holds over 75% of the seats.

Sound unhealthy? Find out how you can make a difference

What’s most shocking about these one party states is that voters don’t choose them. This sort of dominance is almost never a reflection of how people actually vote. For example, in Lewisham tomorrow Labour is projected to win over 90% of council seats, but only to be supported by around half of those who vote.

One party states are unrepresentative.

The solution is to change the voting system for local elections.

Scotland used to have four one party states. Nowadays, after changing to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) in 2007, it has none. If England and Wales also changed from First Past the Post (the system Scotland used to have) to STV, the same could happen here.

And switching to STV would have other advantages too. The disgrace of uncontested seats (where only one party puts forward a candidate in an area – there are seven of these in this year’s local elections) would almost certainly disappear. Turnout could start rising as parties had to campaign more widely in the run up to the election. And independent candidates and smaller parties would stand a better chance of winning seats, giving voters more choice.

The case is compelling.

Politicians in England and Wales need to face up to the fact that our local electoral system is utterly broken. The current system is undermining them, damaging their parties – and most of all it’s unfair on voters. It’s time for a change.

Tens of thousands of people across England are being denied a vote in next week’s local elections, owing to the undemocratic phenomenon of uncontested seats.

In this year’s elections there are seven wards which are ‘uncontested’, ie which are only being contested by one political party. These uncontested wards are:

• Otmoor, Cherwell District Council (Conservative, Oxfordshire)
• Walton South, Elmbridge Borough Council (Conservative, Surrey)
• Appleton, Halton Borough Council (Labour, Cheshire)
• Broadheath, Halton Borough Council (Labour, Cheshire)
• Hale, Halton Borough Council (Labour, Cheshire)
• Halewood West, Knowsley Borough Council (Labour, Merseyside)
• Page Moss, Knowsley Borough Council (Labour, Merseyside)

In these wards, the election results have already been decided without the election even being run, as voters do not have any choice about who is going to represent them. At least 38,000 people are therefore effectively being denied a vote.

The first principle of democracy is that you get to choose who represents you. Uncontested seats make a mockery of democracy. If a seat is uncontested, democracy in that area effectively does not exist. The councillors ‘elected’ in these five wards will have no proper mandate from the people as they will not have had to win a single vote.

In other years, the phenomenon of uncontested seats can be very much worse. Between 2011 and 2014 there have been 382 uncontested seats. That’s over 2.5 million people denied a vote in their local elections.

The electoral system used for local elections in England and Wales (First Past the Post) means there’s little incentive for parties to field candidates where they are unlikely to win. In some cases where FPTP makes the seat a foregone conclusion, no other parties bother contesting it.

Uncontested seats are also a reflection of the dwindling memberships of political parties. In the 1950s, one in ten of us were party members. Now it’s more like one in 100. This is going hand in hand with a general increase in disengagement from politics. These trends make it harder for parties to field candidates in every ward for local elections, as they have fewer people coming forward for public office.

If a seat is uncontested, voters are denied a choice about who gets to represent them. Uncontested seats make a mockery of democracy. They also mean that the councillors ‘elected’ in these seats have no proper mandate. And they make it more likely that a council is dominated by one party, leaving it susceptible to poor scrutiny and therefore poor performance.

It’s time to introduce a fairer voting system for local elections – one which gives voters the chance to be represented by candidates for whom they have actually voted. Local electoral reform would mean there would be incentives for parties to field candidates wherever they have a vote, no matter how small. And it would improve the quality of local democracy, making councils better scrutinised, more transparent and therefore more effective.

In the 2003 Scottish local elections there were 61 uncontested seats. But after a fairer voting system was introduced in 2007 (i.e. the Single Transferable Vote), these uncontested seats were eliminated. Since then, in both the 2007 and 2012 Scottish local elections, there has not been a single uncontested seat.

This is because a fairer local electoral system creates incentives for parties to field candidates wherever they have even a fraction of the vote. This in turn gives voters the chance to be represented by candidates for whom they have actually voted, which for most people is a huge improvement on the status quo.

For those unfortunate enough to live in uncontested wards, of course, they don’t have any say at all. If a fairer local electoral system were introduced in England and Wales, then we will see an end to this blight on our democracy. Let’s consign uncontested seats to the dustbin of history.

On Thursday 6 May, 27 county councils and 8 unitary authorities in England and Anglesey in Wales will hold elections. Sadly, they give us yet another example of the woeful state of local government.

The Electoral Reform Society is determined to lead the debate on how we build a better local democracy in Britain. The reality is that much of what occurs at local authority level impacts on the day-to-day lives of tens of millions of people. Their activities are therefore important.

Let’s take just one element of what makes a good local democracy – the way representatives are elected.

We’re been looking through the list of nominees for all the council seats as they are being released.

All the usual problems with the First Past the Post voting system are there for all to see.

This morning I did an interview with the BBC about the situation in Wiltshire. So let’s consider what’s happening there.

Apart from the fact that the majority of voters who do not support the dominant party in Wiltshire (the Conservatives) will not see fair representation of their vote, there’s a group of people who are even worse off.

That’s the 32,000 people who don’t get a vote at all. That’s right, an election with no vote. They don’t have to wait until May to find out who their councillor will be – we know now.

FPTP produces many Uncontested Seats, where there is only one candidate. These fiefdoms are strongly defended by parties who manage to engineer them, but what about the voters? The idea that 100% of those 32,000 people support one party is laughable. But small, single member wards often lead people to think ‘why bother’ when a dominant party is guaranteed to win, regardless of whether they have a majority of the vote or not.

There’s fair criticism to be made of the other parties for not standing, particularly Labour who are meant to be pursuing a One Nation approach to politics. The fact that they and the Liberal Democrats aren’t even going through the motions of putting up paper candidates speaks volumes about how politically rotten these boroughs have become.

Every vote must have value if we are to build a better local democracy. In the case of Wiltshire, the dominant party enjoys 45.3% of the vote, but wins nearly two thirds of the seats. That’s despite almost 55% of the community voting for other parties. There are similar examples to this in Labour and Liberal Democrat strongholds – it’s not particular to one party.

Thankfully there is a solution to these problems!

Scotland has now successfully held two rounds of local elections using a fairer voting system – and the results stand in stark contrast to what we are seeing in England and Wales. Using the Single Transferable Vote has abolished the phenomenon of Uncontested Seats (down from 61 wards in the last FPTP election to zero in the two STV elections). Voters get more candidates to choose from and they have significantly increased the chances of someone they vote for getting elected.

It’s only one piece in the puzzle of building a better local democracy. But the advent of the county council elections serve as a timely reminder that a change in the voting system can lead to a change in the way politics is done at community level.

You can find out more about the difference STV has made in Scottish Local Elections here

In 2007 Scotland began using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) for local government elections. The First Past the Post system – once used for all public elections in mainland Britain – was consigned to history.

May 2012 marked the second outing for the system, and the first since elections to the Scottish Parliament were ‘decoupled’.

Today we launch our report into that election. We have sought to understand what that change has meant for Scotland’s voters, to see how the public and the parties have adapted, and if expectations – of both supporters and critics alike – have been borne out.

The first STV vote clearly saw massive changes in how elections and local democracy worked in Scotland.

Voter choice more than doubled, uncontested seats became a thing of the past, and the rotten boroughs that once plagued Scotland were undone.

2012 has shown modest, but measurable improvements. What we are witnessing is evidence that both voters and parties are becoming more adept at making the most of the possibilities presented by STV. We are seeing a new system bedding in.

But, as expected, the first local elections since decoupling did see a dramatic drop in voter participation. Turnout in this election was 39.1% – a 14% drop from the last election. That figure may remain head and shoulders above the 31% that turned out in English authorities that year, but that will be of little comfort to anyone with concerns about the health of our democracy.

STV in Scotland has not been a silver bullet for all the ills of local government. Only modest gains on gender balance mean councils will remain “male, pale, and stale” until we see real progress from parties on candidate selection.

Yes, more action is needed but the system is ensuring that more voices are being heard on more councils than ever before.

There are clearly lessons for those in England and Wales who believe their local democracy can and should be better.

2012 Scottish Local Government Elections, 3 May 2012, Report & Analysis, by Professor John Curtice is available for download