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With devolution comes democracy

City devolution is back on the table. Chancellor George Osborne announced last week that plans to hand over powers on housing, transport, planning and policing will be in the government’s first Queen’s...

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The dash for cash

Yesterday the Electoral Commission released the figures on donations to parties in the year up to the election. It makes for pretty shocking reading.£100m was given to ten parties in a single year,...

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A system in crisis

It’s official: this election was the most disproportionate in UK history.We’ve just released our new report on the May 7th General Election, 'A Voting System in Crisis'. And it makes for worrying...

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Scotland leads the way on votes at 16

Yesterday, two very different things happened around the same issue in Scotland and England.At 4:22pm in Westminster, during a debate on the EU Referendum Bill, MPs voted 310-265 against giving 16 and...

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Your chance to help run the Electoral Reform Society

Here at the Electoral Reform Society, we pride ourselves on being a democratic society. So we want to put our members at the heart of the campaign for fair votes and a better democracy in Britain.It’s...

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There's only one option for our bloated upper house

There’s bad news for democratic reformers today. The Guardian is reporting that our already bloated House of Lords is set to swell even more. The news is further proof that our upper chamber is in dire...

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English Votes for English Laws: why we need a proper debate

If you were going to make a major constitutional change, would you do it in just one day?Yesterday the government announced that they are planning to press ahead with a version of English Votes for...

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Expanding the Lords isn't the way to make it fair...

The Telegraph reported on Saturday that UKIP might not receive any more life Peers in the House of Lords before 2020 – despite winning nearly 13% of the vote at the last election.At the same time, the...

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"We need a constitutional convention," say ERS, academics and journalists

Today the ERS and 12 senior academics and journalists write in the Times to call for a citizen-led constitutional convention.Lord Purvis' Bill for a Constitutional Convention receives its Second...

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The government would be wrong to reverse progress on votes at 16

This Wednesday, the House of Lords made an important step forward - they voted 221-154 in favour of allowing 16 and 17 year olds to vote in local elections.It’s yet another win for the campaign for...

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Re-location, re-location, re-location: where should Parliament move to?

As Parliament breaks for the summer recess this week, there’s a bit of time to think about some non-legislative stuff for a change. One pretty pressing issue bubbling underneath is this: with the...

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Join the Great Gathering for Voting Reform

Two and a half months from the General Election, the issue of electoral reform hasn’t gone away.Hundreds are set to gather outside Parliament this Saturday to call for a fair voting system, after the...

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Pricey politics - the Prime Minister's plans to pack the Lords will cost...

Parliament might be in recess, but the House of Lords has been in the news big-time this week over another scandal.We thought it would be worth pointing out just how broken our upper chamber really is...

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It's official: the House of Lords is completely bust

Today, we can reveal that the House of Lords is officially, well and truly bust.We’re pleased to launch our new report on our unelected upper chamber: ‘House of Lords: Fact vs Fiction’ – where we...

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Unspeakable: the scandal of silent Peers in the House of Lords

The reputation of the House of Lords is going from bad to worse. Today we’ve revealed new figures that show just how democratically dire the situation has become for our upper chamber.At the end of...

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Democracy Matters: Why we’re launching our own Citizens’ Assemblies

With so many constitutional debates flying around – and so little public involvement in them – we think it’s time for citizens to have a say about where power should lie in the UK.So next week, leading...

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TUC Congress: A historic moment for electoral reform

Yesterday may well be remembered as a historic day for the campaign for electoral reform. At the TUC Congress in Brighton, trade unions voted by a large margin to consider electoral reform - just two...

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Building Alliances for Electoral Reform – ERS at Lib Dem conference

With five parties united against First Past the Post– the Lib Dems, UKIP, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru – the issue of how to win proportional representation has come to the fore. And it’s a particularly...

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Revealed: the cost of one-party councils

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that First Past the Post hurts our democracy. But it might be hurting our pockets, too.Councils dominated by single parties could be wasting as much as...

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Democracy matters

If you’ve not been following the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill going through Parliament at the moment, you’re not the only one. But something exciting is happening this weekend that can...

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