Tag Archives: electoral reform society

Ed and Jo talk to the Electoral Reform Society

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 12th July 2019 - 11:55 am

The Electoral Reform Society has been talking to both our leadership candidates about their plans for constitutional and political reform.

We are delighted to publish their interviews with their permission.

Here’s Ed’s

The transcript is available here.

And Jo’s

Posted in News | Also tagged ed davey, Jo Swinson and liberal democrat leadership election 2019 | Leave a comment

Voting reform is vital for a more diverse Parliament

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 17th February 2018 - 8:55 am

When Sal Brinton and I did the Hungry for Democracy fast last week, we did it to raise awareness of why we need a different voting system for Westminster so that we can get the Parliament we ask for.

Also in our minds was the fact that proportional voting systems give much more potential for a more diverse Parliament. An article on the Electoral Reform Society’s blog this week shows how our First Past the Post system is a barrier to gender equality. Basically, the safest seats are mostly held by men.

When each constituency has just one seat, only one MP can be elected to represent that area. This in itself quells diversity and competition.

Secondly, the majority of seats rarely change hands between different parties. So once an MP is elected to represent a ‘safe seat’ there is little chance of them losing a subsequent election.

Combined with the fact that incumbent MPs are very rarely deselected, it means ‘safe seat’ MPs have unrivalled job security. And, as the new research shows, the longer an MP has held their seat, the more likely they are to be men.

This represents a constant drag on women’s representation – unless there are real structural changes.

A proportional voting system with multi-member seats would end seat blocking by adding much-needed competition: constituencies would be represented by multiple MPs, meaning no one could secure a monopoly on local representation

Sal talks about how, at current rates of progress, her baby granddaughters, two this Summer, will be in their ninth decade before gender equality is achieved.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged gender inequality and proportional representation | 19 Comments

ERS General Election report shows that Liberal Democrats are heavily under-represented

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 24th August 2017 - 9:39 am

It doesn’t matter what the result of a Westminster election, the Liberal Democrats are usually under-represented. Our 23% in 2010 should have brought us 140 MPs. At this election, according to an Electoral Reform Society report, we could have had 29 or 39 MPs under a proportional system. Given that Labour and the Tories are doing generally all right out of the system at the moment, we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for reform.

If the election had been conducted under the Alternative Vote, which we campaigned for and squandered too much political capital on in the coalition negotiations in 2010, we’d have had even fewer MPs than with First Past the Post. Only 11 Liberal Democrats would have been elected.

The report is generally a depressing read, highlighting how divided we are as a nation. They highlighted the number of wasted votes and pointed out that this was not a good thing for legitimacy:

In the end, we have a system that recognises the geographical location of a voter and nothing else. It is where voters are – rather than their choices – that matters. This must change if we are to restore legitimacy to our political institutions.

It says that First Past the Post has had its 3rd strike after failing to deliver decisive results in the last 3 elections. I beg to differ with that one. At least in 2010, we had a Government which had the support of more than half of the electorate for the two parties. Those of us who have been around for longer can attest to the fact that it has always been unfair. In my first election a quarter of the votes for the Alliance resulted in just 23 seats.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged general election 2017 | 21 Comments

What the Electoral Reform Society Report on the Referendum missed out

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 5th September 2016 - 5:15 pm

Recently, the Electoral Reform Society published its report on the EU Referendum. It’s an interesting read.

It’s main recommendations include:

greater pre-legislative scrutiny of a Referendum Bill
a more deliberative approach
a body which can rule on the veracity of claims

In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, ERS conducted a poll to find out the key influencers of and perceptions about the campaign.

This graphic, showing where people got their information from, sums up how well the Leave campaign hit its target market and how completely rubbish the Remain campaign was.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged eu referendum | 27 Comments

Five Liberal Democrats elected to Electoral Reform Society Council

By The Voice | Sat 5th September 2015 - 12:15 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

Five Liberal Democrats have been elected to the Electoral Reform Society’s Council. They are Crispin Allard, Paul Pettinger, Keith Sharp, Jon Walsh, who were re-elected, and new arrival Wera Hobhouse. There are also 4 Labour, 1 Green and 5 non politically aligned members.

The society has its AGM today at which the new Council takes office.

What surprises me, from the official announcement, is that there were only just over 3500 valid voters of whom less than 30% actually cast their ballot. I would have expected ERS to have more members and for those members to be more engaged in the future course of the organisation.

Posted in News | 16 Comments

The Independent View: Let’s make 2015 the last ever lottery election

By Katie Ghose | Fri 13th March 2015 - 8:55 am

Who could have predicted it? Who would have thought that four years after the Alternative Vote was firmly rejected by voters in a national referendum, we would be approaching the 2015 general election with First Past the Post at Westminster under serious scrutiny? Or that local electoral reform could be a realistic outcome of power-sharing talks between Liberal Democrats and one or other of the major parties (provided Lib Dems make it a ‘red-line’ issue)?

What are the game-changers? Firstly, FPTP’s supposed ability to deliver clear majority government was justification enough for many to put up with the obvious lack of proportionality. That no longer applies. As The Economist says: “Unaccustomed and ill-adapted to multi-party politics, Britain is more likely to get weak, unstable governments. That will only fuel the dissatisfaction with career politicians in the main parties. And if the parliamentary system comes to be seen as both unfair and ineffectual, then it is in for a crisis of legitimacy.”

With FPTP stripped of its main justification, other arguments are also coming to the fore. In The Lottery Election, published last month by the Electoral Reform Society, Professor John Curtice argues that relatively small shifts in opinion could have massive effects at the Westminster level. Meanwhile, UKIP could come 6th in seats but 3rd in votes, and SNP could come 6th in votes but 3rd in seats. So far, so unfair.

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged electoral reform and general election 2015 | 25 Comments

The Independent View: Constitutional reform is back in fashion

By Katie Ghose | Mon 6th October 2014 - 2:28 pm

For so long, those who care passionately about political reform have been told there are more important things to worry about – that tax, welfare and housing will always take precedence over the constitution and questions of process.

The Scottish independence referendum has almost put an end to that kind of talk. As the Liberal Democrats have always known, politics and the constitution fundamentally shape the collective decisions we make, and are therefore of the utmost importance. The referendum also undermined the old put-down that no one cares about constitutional reform. Try telling that to the 97% of Scots who registered to vote, or the 85% who went to the polls. When the stakes are high enough, people will get involved.

Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged constitutional convention | 3 Comments

A longer listen for the weekend: Can liberalism be better advanced by Lib Dems or Tories?

By The Voice | Sat 15th March 2014 - 11:07 am

That was the topic up for debate at a fringe event a week ago at Spring Conference, hosted jointly by the Electoral Reform Society and Liberal Reform.

Lisa Smart, PPC for Hazel Grove, chaired the discussion, with Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne, Conservative and Director of Bright Blue Ryan Shorthouse, and the ERS’s Nick Tyrone completing the panel.

As Jeremy indicates at the beginning of his remarks, he can answer the question shortly: the Lib Dems are the proper home for liberals. But fortunately for the audience he elaborated a little, including some challenges that he thinks the party has to meet if it is to remain at the liberal cutting edge.

Posted in News | Also tagged featured, jeremy browne, liberal reform, lisa smart, nick tyrone and ryan shorthouse | 46 Comments

The Orange Bookers v the Cameroons: Liberal Reform/ERS event at spring conference

By Nick Tyrone | Tue 4th March 2014 - 8:46 am

This Saturday, March 8^th, at spring conference, Liberal Reform and the Electoral Reform Society will be hosting an event in the Bootham Room of the Hilton York on the topic of Which Party for Liberals? Conservative or Liberal Democrats?

I know already that, right from the title, there will be some in the party who will be upset. “Why limit the choice outside of the Lib Dems to just the Tories?”, I can imagine some will ask. The binary nature of the debate was inspired by Nick Boles’ talk a few months ago about the need for a “National Liberal” party, one …

Posted in Conference | Also tagged liberal democrats spring conference 2014 | 8 Comments

Opinion: Worst past the post? Debating electoral reform for local government

By Nick Tyrone | Wed 6th March 2013 - 1:56 pm

Last year in May, Scottish voters were given the chance to vote using the Single Transferable Vote to select their local councillors for the second time since the introduction of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act of 2004. The Bill owes its life to the Liberal Democrats; it was a key demand for us entering into the Lib-Lab coalition government in Scotland. Almost ten years on from when the Bill became law, STV has done what it says on the tin. It has produced almost proportional results (exact proportionality is pretty much impossible under any system), it has almost doubled the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged aldc, electoral reform, liberal democrat conference fringe and Scotland | 8 Comments

What to make of the new Electoral Reform Society rules?

By Mark Pack | Sun 8th July 2012 - 4:05 pm

Members of the Electoral Reform Society have been getting a weighty mailing through the post, ahead of a special meeting on 14 July to accept or reject a thorough rewrite of the ERS’s ruling documents such as its Memorandum and Articles of Association, Election Byelaws, Membership Byelaws and the Standing Orders for (Annual) General Meetings.

As the mailing indicates, 13 of the 14 Council members back the change, with one dissenting. As a result, I’ve been taking a read through all the details to see which way to cast my vote.

Overall …

Posted in News | 17 Comments

What part of Yes do you not understand?

By James Graham | Tue 6th December 2011 - 9:54 am

We don’t normally republish lengthy pieces from other people’s blogs, but in the case of James Graham’s review of Don’t Take No For An Answer by Lewis Baston and Ken Ritchie, which doubles up as a detailed post-mortem on the AV referendum, we’re happy to throw those rules out of the window because of both the post’s excellence and the importance of the issues to future campaigning and hopes for electoral reform.

So here is a slightly revised version of the post which first appeared on James’s blog. You can also read Mark Pack’s (much shorter!) review of Don’t …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged av referendum, electoral reform, featured, ken ritchie, lewis baston and unlock democracy | 21 Comments

Opinion: The battle for the Electoral Reform Society – the results

By Simon McGrath | Sat 17th September 2011 - 11:55 am

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 …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged jessica asato | 5 Comments

5 posts to read before casting your Electoral Reform Society council vote

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th August 2011 - 3:55 pm

If like me you’re a member of the Electoral Reform Society, you’ll have recently received a thick wad of paperwork through your letterbox. The reason? It’s time for the election to the Council of the ERS. The deadline for voting is this Friday, 26th August, so time’s not on your side to wade through the 53 manifestos of those standing for election.

Simon McGrath wrote about the elections here on Lib Dem Voice this week, sparking an interesting discussion thread. But here’s a further five posts (in no particular order) I’d personally recommend reading before deciding how to …

Posted in News | Also tagged electoral reform | 10 Comments

Opinion: the battle for the Electoral Reform Society

By Simon McGrath | Wed 17th August 2011 - 10:05 am

One of the consequences of the failure of the AV campaign may be radical change at the venerable Electoral Reform Society. The ERS is conducting the biennial election for its Council at the moment with no less than 53 candidates standing for election to fill 15 places. There is also a range of motions at the AGM on 3 September, some of which would make fundamental changes to the ERS.

The main prize for anyone who controls the ERS is financial – they have by pressure group standards a huge income through their ownership of Electoral …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged andrew burns, chris carrigan, electoral reform services ltd, enid lakeman, ers, ERS Reform, katie ghose, keith sharp and michael meadowcroft | 41 Comments

Opinion: Unfair and unbalanced – the scandal of print media referendum coverage

By Andy May | Sat 2nd July 2011 - 1:37 pm

Buried amongst the furore caused by #harigate this week was a pretty damning ruling by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) against the Sun and the Daily Mail. The complaint in question was made in relation to the AV referendum nearly two months ago by Electoral Reform Services – the business arm of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).

The Sun and Mail were asked by the PCC to print letters apologising for some articles run during the AV referendum campaign. The article which ran on page 2 of the Sun and the front page of the Mail quoted George Osborne after he stood up in Parliament to claim that the ERS, one of the major funders of the Yes campaign would benefit financially from a ‘yes’ vote. This story was then re-run by Sky News and the BBC – subsequent rebuttals gave the story legs across a range of national media outlets.

You can be forgiven for not noticing since few journalists like to turn the spotlight on their own profession’s sometimes questionable practices.

Let’s just think about the context in which this fallacious claim was printed:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged george osborne, press complaints commission and yes2av | 14 Comments

Independent View: Time for Lib Dems to ditch STV

By Anthony Butcher | Sat 21st May 2011 - 6:14 pm

With the loss of the AV referendum, electoral reformers across Britain are now looking at what went wrong and what changes they can make for the future to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We need our political parties to do the same, and that means a re-evaluating their electoral reform policies.

As absurd as it is, the perceived complexity of AV was a significant factor in its rejection by the public. The whole concept of preferential voting has now been tainted for a generation as overly complicated. If we are to engage the public interest in the future we need to …

Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged electoral reform and STV | 52 Comments

Ten questions for conference

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th September 2010 - 9:26 am

It’s a fair bet that much of the media coverage of Liberal Democrat conference will be of the form ‘THEY’RE DOOMED!’, with the more subtle coverage for the more discerning journalists being ‘Are they doomed?’.

That has, after all, been the standard media fare since long before the Coalition, since before Nick Clegg became an MP, since before David Cameron became an MP, since before Tony Blair become Labour leader and since before John Major became Prime Minister. My money isn’t on the old standard formula changing this time round for …

Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged alan travis, greg hurst, julian glover, mike hancock, nick clegg and trident | 14 Comments

Katie Ghose appointed new Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th August 2010 - 9:19 pm

The press notice from the Electoral Reform Society says:

Katie Ghose has served for 5 years as Director of the British Institute of Human Rights, a national charity with a mission to bring rights to life for everyone in the UK. A public affairs specialist and barrister with a background in human rights law and immigration, she served as a Commissioner on the Independent Asylum Commission from 2006-2008, where she helped to conduct the biggest ever indepedent review of the UK asylum system. She has worked in campaigns for several third sector organisations including Age UK (then Age Concern England

…

Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum, james graham and katie ghose | 3 Comments

“The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 3:21 pm

So says Nick Clegg in an interview for Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.

His underlying point is a good one – the coalition isn’t a single-issue coalition which is about AV and nothing else. And, as James Graham points out, the Electoral Reform Society isn’t a sort of glorified from of the Liberal Democrats either.

However, Nick Clegg does make the point at some length in the interview – “The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”, “I wouldn’t have stood for the leadership of the Lib Dems if I thought the only sole purpose in …

Posted in News | Also tagged electoral reform, james graham, nick clegg and westminster hour | 36 Comments

Opinion: Why the Electoral Reform Society are shooting themselves in the foot

By Marianne Ibbotson | Mon 17th May 2010 - 2:20 pm

Recently, the Electoral Reform Society has released a study claiming to show how the recent election would have gone under the Alternative Vote (and the Single Transferable Vote). This study has been picked up by The Guardian, The Telegraph and the BBC, who all seem to be presenting the results as scientific fact. However, there are massive flaws in this study, which apart from making it plain bad “science”, very possibly end up sabotaging the Electoral Reform Society’s efforts to campaign for Proportional Representation.

The first problem with the study is its assumption that how people voted under …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged electoral reform | 41 Comments

29% of seats have not changed hands since 1945

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th September 2009 - 4:20 pm

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

A major part of the point of a democratic electoral system is that those elected to public office can be held to account by the public for their actions. The anger we often see over the behaviour of MPs – whether on matters of policy (such as the Iraq war) or on matters of probity (such as MPs’ expenses) – is often aggravated by an underlying lack of belief that MPs will in the normal course of events get held accountable for their actions. Hence the paucity of comments along the lines of “I can’t …

Posted in General Election, News and Parliament | Also tagged electoral reform and featured | 20 Comments

100 days to change British democracy

By Mark Pack | Mon 10th August 2009 - 7:50 pm

An email pops in to my inbox from the Electoral Reform Society:

Today we mark 100 days until the Queen’s Speech – and the government’s last chance to change politics for good.

If you’re a blogger or a web editor you can help the campaign today by adding our countdown widget to your posts or site:
http://voteforachange.co.uk/widget

Feeling creative? Well grab your camcorder and enter the campaign’s viral video competition. You’ve got less than a minute to tell us just what you think’s wrong with politics. Not long we know! But there’s a Macbook up for grabs for the best entry –

…

Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged electoral reform | Leave a comment

Compass want Lib Dems at its conference

By Gavin Hayes | Tue 2nd June 2009 - 3:43 pm

As a visitor to LibDemVoice you may or may not be aware of the work of Compass – the influential pressure group that campaigns for a more democratic, equal and sustainable world. Compass is about building a broadly based Liberal Left politics and as a Liberal Democrat activist we wanted to introduce you to our important work and to invite you to attend our National Conference on Saturday 13 June.

We believe that both the Tory and Labour leaderships want to turn back as soon as possible to the failed politics of the pre-crash – both in terms of the old economy …

Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged amnesty international, compass, constitutional reform, demos, electoral reform, evan harris, fawcett society, helena kennedy, john harris, jubilee debt campaign, make votes count, neal lawson, oxfam, polly toynbee, richard grayson and social liberal forum | 14 Comments

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Tag Archives: electoral reform society

Ed and Jo talk to the Electoral Reform Society

Voting reform is vital for a more diverse Parliament

ERS General Election report shows that Liberal Democrats are heavily under-represented

What the Electoral Reform Society Report on the Referendum missed out

Five Liberal Democrats elected to Electoral Reform Society Council

The Independent View: Let’s make 2015 the last ever lottery election

The Independent View: Constitutional reform is back in fashion

A longer listen for the weekend: Can liberalism be better advanced by Lib Dems or Tories?

The Orange Bookers v the Cameroons: Liberal Reform/ERS event at spring conference

Opinion: Worst past the post? Debating electoral reform for local government

What to make of the new Electoral Reform Society rules?

What part of Yes do you not understand?

Opinion: The battle for the Electoral Reform Society – the results

5 posts to read before casting your Electoral Reform Society council vote

Opinion: the battle for the Electoral Reform Society

Opinion: Unfair and unbalanced – the scandal of print media referendum coverage

Independent View: Time for Lib Dems to ditch STV

Ten questions for conference

Katie Ghose appointed new Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society

“The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”

Opinion: Why the Electoral Reform Society are shooting themselves in the foot

29% of seats have not changed hands since 1945

100 days to change British democracy

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