{"id":8337,"date":"2024-12-07T12:38:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T12:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electoral-reform.org.uk\/?p=8337"},"modified":"2024-12-10T12:33:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T12:33:28","slug":"2024-at-the-ers-our-research-making-the-case-for-democratic-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/2024-at-the-ers-our-research-making-the-case-for-democratic-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 at the ERS: Our research making the case for democratic reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Each year we write an Annual Report which looks back at our achievements across the last 12 months, and explains how our team have campaigned towards securing our vision for a democracy fit for the 21st Century.<\/i><\/p>\n

By using our voice in the media, developing in-depth research and policy, campaigning and influencing and making the case online we\u2019ve led the charge for reform in 2024.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read the full Annual Report for 2024: Our Year Campaigning for Change<\/a> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ian<\/p>\n

Ian Simpson, Research Officer:<\/h4>\n

\u201cAcross this year\u00a0the research\u00a0team has continued to conduct independent,\u00a0in-depth\u00a0and\u00a0timely\u00a0research into the state of our political system. Conducting high-quality research is key to achieving our strategic goals as it provides the evidence base for our policy and campaigns. Research was central to our work on the General Election and provided the basis for our media and digital campaigning. We had prepared for the General Election by\u00a0mapping\u00a0the changes that had occurred to the UK parliamentary constituencies\u00a0following the boundary reviews.\u00a0This ensured we had a thorough understanding of the electoral landscape prior to the election and enabled us to produce interesting data during the campaign and after the results were announced\u201d<\/em>
\nAt the start of the year the research and communications teams together drew up a new messaging guide for use by the Democracy sector. This was the final thread of the messaging research project which took place in 2023 in which we engaged multiple research agencies and tested messaging on PR on the general public. We shared this messaging guide with National Campaign for PR early this year and the messaging we created was used during the general election.<\/p>\n

In May there were local council elections in many places in England, and once again we\u00a0highlighted places that saw highly disproportional outcomes<\/a>, with voters failing to be represented properly.\u00a0We renewed our call to replace FPTP with STV for English local elections<\/a>, matching the tried and tested system used for Scottish local elections, which produces outcomes that much more closely match how people have voted in their local area.<\/p>\n

There were also Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections across England and Wales and a number of elections for directly-elected mayors, including high profile contests in Greater London, Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Tees Valley. These were the first set of PCC elections held under the First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system after the previous Conservative government scrapped the use of the Supplementary Vote (SV) system for PCCs and elected mayors as part of the Elections Act 2022.\u00a0We highlighted how this reduced the mandates of the mayors and PPCs who were elected<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0called for FPTP for mayors to be scrapped<\/a>. We also gave evidence to the Greater London Authority elections committee on the impact of using FPTP for these elections.<\/p>\n

In May this year we also launched our report\u00a0Pursuing Parity: Examining Gender Quotas Across Electoral Systems<\/a>, with a webinar in May for our members and supporters as well as others in the sector. The report laid out how the electoral system can impact the diversity of an elected body and how gender quotas can work in conjunction with different electoral systems to produce more gender-balanced legislatures. This piece of research found that elected bodies which use proportional representation are more likely to have larger numbers of women in their elected bodies than countries which use majoritarian systems.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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