A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about the battle for control of the Electoral Reform Society. The results of the Electoral Reform Society Council election have since come out and they show a clear victory for the ‘reform’ slate, eight of whose 15 candidates got elected. Just four of the existing nine council members were re-elected (the Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer and Michael Meadowcroft, who topped the poll) with the other three successful candidates also being in favour of reform.

There had been talk of a legal challenge to the elections, centering on whether those given free membership could vote but this now seems unlikely, particularly as the Society has taken legal advice on this point.

Rather surprisingly given the nature of the ERS only 32% of the members voted, although there is some suggestion that the sheer number of candidates (53 for 15 places on Council) may have deterred some people from voting.

In many ways the election results were a demonstration of the value of STV – the clear will of members for changes was reflected but the Council still reflects a wide range of views and experience.

To what degree this will change Electoral Reform Society remains to be seen. After its subsequent AGM there was a Council meeting but that decided to leave the election of officers until the next meeting. This is said to be because they wanted to get to know each other better although it may also be because two of the reform slate could not be there. I understand that they are planning to change at least two of the officers, possibly running Jessica Asato (who ran David Miliband’s social media campaign) as one of their candidates.

The AGM itself was a curious affair. The most controversial resolution, to remove STV as one of the main objects of the Electoral Reform Society, was defeated, as were a succession of other motions seeking to make constitutional changes. The impression I had was that a lot of these came from a small group in ERS who were bitter about events in previous years, particularly around the departure of a previous Chief Executive. One of the problems for the Officers is that having signed a legal agreement with a confidentiality clause as part of the previous CEO’s leaving package they are unable to talk about this – which looks like they have been covering things up. I hadn’t realized the extent to which the ERS had been factionalized in the past and to which the current Council had, ironically, cleaned up the previous mess. The motions debated at the AGM can be found on the ERS website.

There was a brief discussion at the AGM about the AV Referendum campaign but as the AGM was running well over time and the ERS’s own enquiries have not yet finished it was agreed to hold a special EGM later in the year for a fuller discussion.

The focus of the ERS in future will clearly be building up a more grassroots organisation with much more of a focus on the members and developing a campaigning capacity – STV for local elections seems likely to be a priority.

In the meantime the ERS is a body that all Lib Dems should join, particularly as they are still offering free membership!