Apologies for the light posting here – I’ve been a bit busy with other things lately. This post will be some way off being a detailed bit of innovative research as well – more an observation to fill the gap.
Every candidate at the next general election will be subjected to a set of rules to [...]
Posts under ‘Elections’
Election expenses & ’swiftboating’ – still relevant?
Elsewhere
I’ve just had this article published by The Telegraph. Sometimes, it’s only when you read yourself elsewhere that you see that you buried your more important point under less significant ones.
“Since the 2005 election, we have raced past the tipping point. Facebook has 23 million British users. About half of the eligible voters are social [...]
Voting systems compared
If the rumours are correct, Gordon Brown is about to announce his intention to promote a new voting system for Parliamentary elections in the UK. His choice is said to be the Alternative Vote (AV) system. It looks like the Vote For A Change campaign will get their way and there will be a referendum [...]
The straight choice
Richard Pope, Francis Irving and Julian Todd have developed a site – The Straight Choice – that allows you to upload election leaflets as they come through your door – with the intention of promoting consistency and honesty.
It’s an interesting idea. And – as you come here partly because you often get unpopular arguments, let [...]
Left front = a table?
One of the nice things about the dynamic way that the internet arranges things is that you sometimes stumble upon artifacts that you don’t understand, but that look fascinating.
This Icelandic blog, for instance, is a complete mystery to me. I found it years ago and visit it once every few months. I’ve no idea what [...]
India votes!
Over the next month or so, the worlds biggest democracy will go to the polls. That’s over 700 million voters.
Here are some photos over on Flickr: Promoting positivity about democracy in Hyderabad. I love the pride with which some of the photographers annotate their pictures – a satisfaction in participation.
Note the marks on the photographer’s finger [...]
Home PgDn
Time for a look at Chapter three of the Conservative local government green paper, Shift Control.
This chapter is the section of the green paper that focuses on democracy, so there’s a lot to talk about. The chapter says that a Conservative Government would:
provide citizens in all our large cities with the opportunity to choose whether [...]
SysRq F12
Part three of a series of articles looking at the Conservative local government green paper, Shift Control.
This time, chapter two. This chapter is about localism, and promises that a Conservative Government would:
give local residents the power to determine the balance between the level of council tax and the level of services
delivered;
drastically reduce the centrally imposed [...]
Do a good deed over the weekend?
If you edit any website or blog, why not make sure that there is a link to the Electoral Commission’s ‘About My Vote‘ website. It encourages people to register and makes it all as easy as possible to do it online. It’s even not that bad from a usability point of view which isn’t a [...]
Ballot design
Before politics stopped being fairly boring in the late summer last year, the book of the year looked like it was going to be Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge. It’s still worth a look when you need a break from Robert Peston – and one of their areas of interest has been ballot design [...]
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
