The gender gap
A long-standing issue for local government has been the recruitment of women councillors, with the LGA’s 2018 councillor census showing 36 per cent were female.
Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher
Crossing the floor
In recent years it has become more common for members of Parliament to quit the party under whose banner they were elected and sit either as Independents or for one of their former rivals.
Measuring the strength of local parties
The Electoral Commission has reported that the Hersham Village Society received more than £200,000 left to it in a local resident’s will. Various other residents’ associations in Elmbridge must be envious of such largesse.
The challenge of combined elections
Local electoral administrators, unsung heroes of democracy, have become used to conducting combined elections in recent years. But May 2021 will present many of them in England with their biggest challenge yet.
Tackling low turnout
Low and declining turnout is a long-running feature of local elections in the UK. Indeed, the gap in turnout with parliamentary elections is one of the largest among liberal democracies.
The right time for remote voting?
The pandemic has concentrated attention across the world on the philosophy and practice of remote voting.
The councils prone to by-elections
What factors influence the frequency of by-elections, and are some councils more prone than others to having to fill casual vacancies?
May’s local elections – who would have won?
We will never know, of course, but the Conservatives could have been celebrating their best local election results for nearly three decades.
Measuring electoral volatility
We begin with two questions. First, considering council by-elections since 1983, which year has seen the largest proportion of seats changing hands – in other words, the greatest electoral volatility? …
Local party successes
Labour’s newly elected Councillor Gurdev Singh Hayre will probably be the last to succeed in a council by-election for quite some time.