Democracy Club Blog

Six things we learned from the Electoral Commission’s 2024 report

The Electoral Commission published its GE report. We’re in it. Also some other things.

The ward lists of the City of London

Domine Dirige Nos: “Lord direct us” (to the correct electoral registration portal).

Election notices: three problems and their solutions

Statutory election notices are not good. We think they can be better.

When elections are cancelled

An overview of why, when and where cancellations occur.

Join Democracy Club's Mission: Board Members Wanted

Are you passionate about strengthening democracy in the UK? Now’s your chance to make a difference!

2024 elections report

We’ve published our 2024 election report, and have lots to celebrate.

2024 general election feedback

An overview of the feedback we received for the 2024 General Election!

The rest of the state

We’ve added a feature to WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk that tells you about all the roles and responsibilities of the various people and organisations that represent you and your area.

2024 general election postcode search summary

Number really did go up.

Who's on the ballot? A look at Democracy Club's general election database

The demographics, past electoral histories, and biscuits of GE candidates.

2024 UK general election candidate summary

The most candidates ever! See the full list of parties standing.

2024 general election: data and resources for campaigners, journalists and researchers

Data and resources for campaigners, journalists and researchers.

2024 local election user feedback

An overview of the user feedback we received for the May 2024 local elections!

2024 postcode search summary

2.3 million!

How many polling stations are there in the UK?

It depends which question you’re asking.

The 2024 English local elections: a regional look

On 2 May, 10,248 candidates are standing for 2,707 council seats across England. Using Democracy Club’s candidate data, it is easy to analyse the candidates by regions or council area - which is what we’ve done!

Party and candidate material for the 2024 local elections

We’ve collected as much information as we can about candidates and political parties standing for election on 2 May in England and Wales.

2024 local election data summary

All the candidates standing in the 2024 local elections.

Voter information and UK law: an overview

A short history of public information provision in UK electoral law.

What's up for election in 2024?

A summary of the key dates and information about the upcoming elections in 2 May.

Case Study: the BBC

Democracy Club’s polling station finder allows the BBC to provide its readers with the information they need to vote.

Dealing with electoral change and uncertainty

We discuss our work tracking Electoral Change Orders, and look at some legal drama relating to proposed PCC reforms.

The Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill

More electoral reforms are on the way, this time in Scotland. We take a look at the newly introduced Scottish electoral reform bill.

Case Study: Fawcett Society

Democracy Club’s election candidate data allows the Fawcett Society to produce hard-hitting research on gender inequalities in British politics.

Collecting candidate statements is hard, let's collect emails instead

A reflection on the problems of collecting candidate statements at scale, and a proposed solution.

Case study: Electoral Commission

Democracy Club’s data services have enabled the UK Electoral Commission to reach hundreds of thousands of voters with accurate pre-election information.

Spreadsheets, turnout, emails and crimes: or, what we did this summer

Updates on Democracy Club’s recent projects.

Case Study: Welsh Government

The Welsh Government uses Democracy Club’s voter information websites to reach voters with information about electoral reforms.

Why we're excited about the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill 2024, and you should be too

The Welsh Government has introduced some new draft legislation to the Senedd that makes some potentially huge changes to the way Welsh elections work.

Opening the register of political parties

We take a look at the UK’s register of political parties: its history, contents, and our plans to improve its accessibility.

Planning for the general election

A general election is on the way - here’s how we plan to empower voters, companies and campaigners to build the democracy we all deserve.

2023 Election report and user feedback

What went well? What didn’t? And what did our users think about it all?!

Recall petitions in our API

We’ve recently been asked by the Electoral Commission to provide information about the Rutherglen and Hamilton West recall petition in our voting information API.

2023 postcode search summary

As per tradition, number go up.

2023 local election data summary

What's up for election in 2023?

241 councils and 8,519 councillors.

Why Democracy Club is non-partisan

Some reflections on our impartiality.

Welcome to the new-look Every Election

An overview of recent changes to Every Election and our elections model.

All change!

A summary of recent staffing changes at Democracy Club.

2022 Election Report

We’ve published our report on the 2022 elections!

Does Democracy Club make you more likely to vote?

We review the feedback left by users during the 2022 elections.

We served 1.9 million voters this week!

1,903,142 postcode searches!

The one where we celebrate all the polling stations

18,000!

Charts & graphs: the 2022 local elections

An exclusive & idiosyncratic look at the elections in England, Scotland & Wales.

Pwy alla i bleidleisio ar gyfer?

Translations, SoPNs, and Sankeys.

2022 local election data summary

The state of the parties heading into the 2022 polls.

Local elections 2022: Join hundreds of others to improve this year’s elections

Democracy Club’s mission is to make this year’s elections more accessible for everyone. Here’s how you can get involved!

What's up for election in 2022?

There’s lots going on in 2022, here’s what to expect…

Hello, I’m joining Democracy Club as interim CEO

Introducing Mevan, with a reminder of what we do and why we do it.

Introducing the team for 2022

Democracy Club grows again, and gains a funder!

Getting a list of candidates is harder than you think

Over the past couple of months, we’ve made getting that list more reliable and accurate with improved testing, cleaner code, and a better system for reporting bugs.

Testing the Representatives Project

There’s a whole world of council sub-committees to discover. Isn’t it exciting?

2022 and beyond: an updated strategy

For this, our first blog post of 2022, we take stock of where we are and where we want to be in a few years’ time.

One Square Mile of Democracy

We put the manic into Aldermanic.

Autumn update

Jobs, election pilots, and much much more!

We're looking for some more directors

Could it be YOU?

Representatives, Referendums, and Redesigns

Or, the Democracy Club summer show-and-tell.

2021 Elections Report

It’s election report time!

We collected data on 1,500 politicians' favourite biscuit. Here's what we found.

What’s the link between biscuits and voter information?

Hwyl Fawr Ffrindiau/Goodbye Friends!

Short but sweet!

Tell me what you want, what you really, really want

We take a look at your feedback from May 6!

A letter to John Pullinger, new Electoral Commission chair

We write to John Pullinger the new Chair of The Electoral Commission with our thoughts on how the Commission can provide better information to voters over his five year term

2,087,285 postcode searches

Didn’t we do well?

What do 35,500 polling stations look like?

Mine’s a skittle alley. What about yours?

2021 Election Data through a Gendered Lens

We’re once again working with the Fawcett society to analyse the gender profile of candidates

How do you even say that? A look at the Welsh and Scottish Elections

Wales, Scotland, and George Harrison- an unlikely connection

2021 English local election data summary

We’ve made our lists, and we’ve checked them twice.

Parish councils on WhoCanIVoteFor

Three down, 9,997 to go.

What Van Halen can teach us about data

On the day that the GDS registers are shut down, we reflect on the Government’s National Data Strategy and offer 5 suggestions for whatever comes next

WhoCanIVoteFor gets a refresh

An overview of some recent changes to everyone’s favourite election website.

An Election Fit for Digital Natives

Votes@16 is approaching in Wales- is our voting system ready?

The most complex elections ever?

How many ballots will you have?

Democracy Club, Assemble!

Now with 75% more team members, and 100% less certainty.

The Electoral Commission at 20

We wish The Electoral Commission a happy birthday the only way we know how: by thinking about its future effectiveness.

Devolving Work

We’re hiring! Again!

We’re back!

A look at what’s to come in May 2021 and beyond.

We need a single agency to be responsible for UK elections

No one in the UK is responsible for the health or security of the UK’s democracy.

Where and Who are our Users?

We present a host of graphs (and a map!) in an attempt to understand the people behind the postcode searches.

The Real One

As many have noted, today was going to be a general election, once.

But it was also going to be The Real One for Democracy Club. The plan, back in autumn 2013, was to learn from the 2015 general election so we knew what we were doing at the 2020 election. Everything up to now was meant to be a practice.

Presenting our Report on the 2019 General Election

We announce our review of last year’s general election, and offer a few insights from Google Analytics, exclusive to our blog readers!

Tracking Democracy Club's International Users

Turns out we’re more popular in Romania than we thought.

The One Where We Pause For A Bit

What’s going on a DemoClub towers? What can you crowdsource in the absence of election data?

Democracy Postponed

In which we address some extraordinary times.

2,703 Future Councillors

We add up all the seats to be elected in May, and Joe gets to chat to the House of Lords.

Spreadsheets! Get your spreadsheets!

The Grand Opening of some new(ish) spreadsheets — all to help voters at the May 2020 elections. Plus, try SuperWidget2!

It's election season again!

We’re now crowdsourcing candidate data for May’s elections — join in! Plus a plug for NotWestminster and we want your feedback on our feedback questions.

The Users Strike Back: GE2019, part 2

In this week’s blog, in a sequel to the very popular Last Week’s Blog, we analyse the feedback left on our candidate-lookup website, WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk, over the general election.

Vox User Vox Dei: GE2019

In which we review the 4,000 comments left by the users of Where Do I Vote? during the General Election.

The One Where It's 2020

A new year! We have May 2020’s elections in our sights…

The One With The Wrap Up

We’ve got all the results, some quick stats on data usage over the election… and What’s Next?

Call for collaboration for one UK-wide polling station finder

Non-partisan voter information organisation, Democracy Club, calls for parties, media and electoral institutions to work together to build a UK-wide polling station finder service

One...

One week to go! We’re trying to get democracy on the election radar, glancing at the manifestos, and generally encouraging people to get involved.

Two...

Refreshing candidate data, making improvements to WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk, launching a new SuperWidget, attending events on trust in the elections, and getting as much polling location data into the system as humanly possible. It’s two weeks to go!

Three...

Three weeks to go.

Another #SoPNDay comes and goes

Our crack squad of volunteers has now inputted all the data from every council and we can announce the number of candidates standing for GE2019!

Five...

There are five weeks to go to GE2019!

It's on! Thurs 12 December is GE2019.

It’s happening: a general election on 12 December 2019. Here’s how you can help.

Back to the Future of Data Reuse

We return to the subject of the API terms of use! Woohoo!

Howdy partner?

In this week’s blog, we’re looking for someone to help us find more data partners, an update on last week’s blogpost on terms of use, one constituency can’t wait for a general election, and some tech updates.

The One With Possible API Terms Of Use Changes

We propose a new version of our API terms of use.

Guess who’s back?

Parliament returns, we start collecting candidate data for May 2020 and some news from Germany.

What Goes On Who?

Editorial decision-making for Who Can I Vote For? and a round up what else is going on.

The One With Some Breathing Space

We’re looking for a freelance developer, building our ideal-partner-for-GE2019 list, and improving the tools for ensuring quality data on Candidates.

Events, dear blog, events

Life comes at us pretty fast in this week’s Thursdayblog, which is an outline of GE2019 planning.

The One Before the Bank Holiday

Power-wombles, threats to democracy and a little bank holiday task…

One widget to rule them all

We’re on the search for the One Widget, plus we publish our lotto fund application and … a new sprint plan!

Education, education, education (of MPs)

MP’s educational backgrounds; calls for evidence from the House of Lords; Snapchat; and some antique local government websites.

The One Where It's August But It's Still Quite Busy

Citizens conventions, manifestos for democracy, pivotal moments in our democratic history, and a possible return of Democracy Club Book Club. Read on.

The One With The Heatwave

It’s annual report time; we’re collecting PPC details; some thoughts on transparency in election campaigning; Snapchat; Voter ID; and more!

The One Where We Went To Bath

A recap of our Bath adventure, our work on improving Candidates and we’re collecting PPC data for GE20…19…?

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Polling Locations?

In this Thursdayblog, we discuss what it would take to get to 100% coverage for the polling station finder, and ask what companies could do to boost voting. Cowabunga!

Draft goals for the year through May 2020

This week’s blog is dedicated to our planning for the year ahead. We plan our years around the election cycle, so end-of-May to end-of-May. (Yes, there might be a snap general, but hey, we’ll worry about that when if it happens.)

The Users Have Spoken...

It’s a cracking blog post this week: we’ve reviewed the feedback from users of WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk and WhereDoIVote.co.uk. The people have spoken…

Review of 2018/2019 (part one)

Twelve months ago we set ourselves some goals. How did we get on? Find out in this all-new Thursdayblog.

Show me the money

Money makes the world go round. Or is that love? Or both. Or physics. Anyway, today’s blog is all about funding: from publishing our funding policy and a record of our income to the announcement of a generous new donor!

Pexit means Pexit

Our trusty elections assistant, Peter Keeling, leaves us today. In today’s special Fridayblog, he reflects on his wild adventures in democracy.

A Quick Review of the Euros, and What's Next

We look back at the European Parliament elections in the UK.

Why can’t we cover every address on WhereDoIVote.co.uk?

Because (a) we don’t have all the data, and (b) democracy is under-resourced in the UK.

To the polls again!

Just six days to go: time to get out the vote and encourage everyone to vote in the European Parliament elections.

The One With Loads of Asks-for-Help

Progress on results data (help us finish it!), European elections party info (help us add it!), Missing Numbers (help us think of some!) and tech vs democracy (add your thoughts!)

The Day After Yesterday

Polls are closed, sports halls are quieter, and those crazy voters now expect to know who now represents them.

138 hours to go!

One last push for LE2019 candidate data; the BBC tells voters the wrong thing; we ask for money; what to do with EuroParl elections and we need ideas for Snapchat.

Two weeks to go!

Elections come around so quickly. Here’s some analysis of who’s standing. And one last push (okay, probably a penultimate push) for more data.

One week: 26,666 candidates!

A long week’s work results in a vast amount of candidate data for the local elections. But there’s more to do! And what should we do for the European Parliamentary elections?

Wombles Assemble

Crowdsourcing for the local elections 2019 is underway! And there are more elections on the not-that-far-away horizon.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no...yes?

We’ve got voter ID information up on our polling station finder, we’re excited about SoPN parties next week (join us!) and we’re pondering the limits of civic tech…

Tick tock, tick tock

As local elections draw closer, we’re keenly listening out to an announcement on local democracy by the BBC’s Director-General.

Let’s party for local democracy!

Westminster politics getting you down? Don’t worry — come party with us to make local democracy better!

55 days to go!

The latest party news, finding improvements to getting candidates data, we’re full speed ahead on polling locations and we’re in a report!

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

What kind of womble are you? What does good journalism at elections look like? When are SoPNs published? And where’s the latest SoPN party to be announced?

Now we are six

The anthropology of civic tech; help name our crowdsourcing website; reports on democratic engagement and on ‘facebook gangsters’; and when a political party is not a political party.

Party for democracy!

We’re looking for hosts for election parties! We’re also working hard on polling station data and Sym is in Huddersfield for #NotWestminster!

Three months to go!

Kicking off work on polling locations; introducing Peter, who’ll be helping on that; updates on candidates, hustings, wikidata and more!

A Request to CSV users

If you use our candidate CSV downloads, or CSV downloads from anyone else, we want your help and feedback!

The One With Ella

This week, the Cabinet Office spots £27m of savings that could be spent on democratic engagement, crowdsourcing is well under way and we welcome Ella to the team!

It's time to volunteer to make elections better!

We launch candidate crowdsourcing for the May local elections! And we’re looking for more party hosts, research on election reminders, and introductions to unions.

The one where we think about partying

A short Fridayblog in which we ask: would you like to host a crowdsourcing party this April? And we congratulate the French.

It's 2019!

Happy New Year! Here’s the roadmap to the local elections of May 2019. And — a bonus treat — a quiz on political geographies!

What changed?

We re-run 262 councillor scrapers after two months and find that not a lot of unexpected changes happened. This leaves us positive about the maintenance overhead for open data on councillors, especially since we’re covering by-elections already. More work is needed to work out the true cost of maintaining a scraper for every council, so we’ll return to the scrapers in another few months.

Lucy Light, Lucy Light, shortest day, medium-sized blog

It’s the end of the year! We’re writing our letter to Father Christmas, celebrating our brilliant volunteers, and counting down the top five blog posts of the year!

Who's naughty or nice?

We review our progress against our annual goals, report back from our board meeting and suggest the perfect gift for the democracy lover in your life.

It’s the most productive time of the year…

Website changes, new donors, and lots of draft documents for your comments! Plus… what are we going to do if there’s another referendum?

The One Where It’s Nearly December

Another mini-blog while we work on the candidates crowdsourcer, API documentation and finishing a report into people underrepresented in the elections process. But a bonus section on crowdfunding!

The Long Black Friday

It’s a quiet fridayblog today as we’re heads down Getting On With Things. But there’s still room to ask for your help with some candidates, to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of women standing for parliament and to raise a new fundraising idea.

The One That Doesn't Even Mention Brexit Once

We want to hear from you if you use our APIs, we get the voice of the people, we have news on funding, and a new data breach policy.

Jobs, candidate data, and ideas from America

Where should we advertise our jobs? When should we take down candidate data? Where next for voter ID? What can we steal from America? And other questions!

The One With The Silver Screen

It’s a frosty fridayblog today, packed with history, centenaries, events and hollywood films.

Chocolate for democracy

Jobs jobs jobs! And thoughts on better crowdsourcing of candidate data; pitching for chocolate money; doctors for democracy; and more!

Wrapping up our research on Representatives (for now)

We started this week asking “What would it take to make a list of all representatives in the UK?”.

To answer this question, or at least create more questions we gave ourselves a week’s “spike”. The idea was to get to the end of the week more informed and able to make some decisions about whether we wanted to do anything else on the project to create a list of all elected representatives in the UK.

How useful is scraped councillor data?

Earlier this week we talked about finding links to lists of councillors and then scraping them all into a single place.

Now we have some data, how useful is it, and what could we do with it?

What might scrapers for councillors look like?

Are there are enough people who can write a little code and care enough to maintain one or more councillor scrapers?

Finding links to lists of representatives

As noted yesterday, one of the first problems with creating a single list of all UK representatives is finding the links to each local list spread across local government websites.

In this technical blog post, I’ll talk about that process, as well some initial thoughts as how easy it is to scrape the data from those local lists once they’ve been found.

What would it take to make a list of all representatives in the UK

We’re doing our bit for European Local Democracy Week by thinking about how we might get more information on representatives in the UK. We think that access to good information is vital to a well functioning democracy, and providing accessible information on representatives is a good step in the right direction.

May 2019, local democracy week, and some R&R for democracy

We start to prepare for next May’s local elections, we ready ourselves for Local Democracy Week and we ponder a cunning plan to fund democratic innovation.

The One With An Exciting New Quest

A new fellowship of wombles (that’s you), talking accessible elections with the Cabinet Office, and there is new funding available for saving civic discourse.

The Blog Transformed

This week, we’re in Liverpool, we’re watching America, we’re reminded that there was such a thing as the Admiralty, we’re discussing open data on councillors, and there’s voter ID news. Phew.

How to write your own epitaph

We look back from the future, we’re rebuilding our crowdsourcing platform and we’re going to lots of events.

The One With The First Book Club

In this week’s blog: our first ever book club, our first ever board away day, some exciting events, some news we missed from last week and tomorrow is International Day of Democracy!

Back to blog!

Fridayblog went on summer holidays. But it’s back. Did you miss it? This week: what we’ve been up to; what other folks are up to; some events; some Clangers.

Blog’s out for summer ☀️🌡

It’s a short, overly hot Fridayblog today. Help us out by finding some results data and then join our new book club!

The One With Goals for 2018-2019

We try to hammer out our aims for the year — please give us your feedback. Also, two evaluations of the voter ID pilots have been published — and we want to start a book club!

On election alert...

Help us gather the SuperThursday results and to prepare in case of a snap election. Also, a really long reading list.

Help us scale in the event of a snap election

Be prepared. Be very prepared. We’re looking for great people who can drop everything (or most things) to help in the event of a snap general election.

The One Where We Don't Win The Awards But Are Totally Fine About It

This week we celebrate the winners of the first National Democracy Awards, plot with various London-based institutions and we need your crowdsourcing help!

Why we can't rely on GSS codes, and what to do about it

New administrative areas in the UK are given identifiers. There is an unpredictable lapse of time between the boundary being published and the identifier being published, and that makes the identifiers less useful for anyone covering elections.

It Must Be Summer

We’re on the road meeting electoral administrators, funders, influencers, anyone that’ll hang out with us. Plus, a SuperThursday!

The One With The Annual Report

It’s our report on the last year! All the stats and analysis you need. Plus emojis.

Plotting for the year ahead

We’re pondering what’s next for the year ahead, there’s a sneak preview of our annual report and more!

The One Where Everyone Loves Polling Locations

It’s a festival of polling station finder news in Fridayblog today, with an extraordinary stat to celebrate, all the data to review and a report on user feedback. Also, an invitation to our summer meetup!

So Long, Farewell.

Rose bids farewell and reflects on her three and a bit months at Democracy Club.

It's oh so quiet

We collated all the local election results! And we’re having a summer event that you should come to.

Happy results Friday!

Results, election day performance, celebrity tweets and what’s next!

Courage calls

Six days to go! And we still need your help to help voters. We also look at the gender divide in the local election stats.

Shake your TICTeCs

In this week’s Fridayblog, we celebrate getting through all the SoPNs for candidate data; launch a new approach to adding useful data for voters; and we’ve some notes from a conference on the impact of civic tech.

14,182 candidates and counting…

In this week’s blog we’re celebrating progress, learning from the parties we threw in three cities and plugging the National Democracy Awards.

Parties, polling progress and popular pursuits for election info

Election parties! Progress on polling stations! And new data on ‘what people search for on election day’.

Election data parties!

A micro-blog announcing our data parties on 10th April — come join us! Also, we’ve added voter ID notices to our polling station finder.

"Not good enough." (Or, The One With User Feedback)

Some user feedback, a new-look polling station finder, a comparison of the voter ID pilots and the data world comes to Bristol!

Voter ID What? Voter ID Who?

The Voter ID pilot is coming to a council election near you. But which councils? And what ID is acceptable?

You're invited!

Crowdsourcing parties, machine learning, the collapse of democracy — it’s Fridayblog!

Machine learning to help elections

Know about machine learning? Want to help democracy in the UK? We have a challenge for you!

We want to know whether it’s possible to turn PDFs into data on election candidates. Can you help?

Healthy democracy, women candidates and local hustings

In this week’s blog: what’s the five-a-day for democracy, what do women candidates want, and can we find more local election hustings?

What Women (Candidates) Want

Today’s post is about the hot topic of the day: women! From leaders in the charity sector to MPs, Rose heard from many different women at the ‘What Women Want 2.0’ report launch. And we need your help!

Frost-Past-The-Post

It’s a short, snow-day Fridayblog, and we’re ready toboggan crowdsourcing candidates!

The One On Voting Advice Applications

In this week’s blog: voting advice applications, councillors that didn’t resign, and we finally get confirmation of the one combined-authority mayoral election happening this May.

Live from #NotWestminster

We’re in sunny Huddersfield for the local democracy conference known as #NotWestminster. And your usual Fridayblog updates!

The One With Rose In It

We fire the starting gun on crowdsourcing for the May elections, we meet up in London to discuss the same and we welcome a new staffer!

The One Where We Make A Plan

Our first ‘proper’ board meeting where we discuss The Plan — we’d love your feedback. We’re also chatting open government, pondering party conferences — and we’re joined by a new staff member next week!

SuperWombles and other stories

In this week’s blog, we celebrate some top volunteering, catch up on voter ID pilots, and we’re meeting people and reading stuff!

‘Alexa, who should I vote for?’

In this week’s blog, we’re previewing our hosting of the Maker Day at NotWestminster, we meet NextDoor, the local social network, and we’re asking if Alexa can chat to you about elections.

Are you local?

Democracy meet-ups in Huddersfield and London, the loss of a Minister, and what should Democracy Club do next?

Happy new year!

In this week’s blog: scarily named security issues threaten to ruin everything, we’ve lost some civic tech mapping friends, we read Her Majesty’s Government’s Democratic Engagement Plan, and there are just four months until the local elections.

It’s the most wonderful blog of the year

It might be the last week of the year, but there’s still time for a meeting about National Democracy Week, for some volunteers to look at ElectionLeaflets.org and for a countdown of our top blogs of 2017!

And now on BBC One, Democracy Club.

This week we visit the BBC, consider research priorities, prepare for making a New Plan and we get some rare good news about boundaries!

The One Where One Can't Be Too Careful

ElectionLeaflets.org gets the academic treatment, a sketch of a plan for a general election, getting information on by-election candidates and some other stuff!

We've got a board!

It’s a Fridayblog exclusive! Democracy Club has a new board of directors!

The One With The Halfway Review

We’re halfway through the democracy year! In this week’s blog we review our progress; host a nearly-a-board meeting; raise an eyebrow about open geospatial data news; remember we have a civic tech reading list; and we want your research questions.

I, for one, welcome our new SlackBot overlords

As a small team, we’re always looking for ways we can use automation to do more for less. This week we’re looking at some of the bots that keep the wheels turning behind the scenes at Democracy Club.

The One With Lists of Lists of Lists

In this week’s blog, we’re talking about a new project for the Open Data Institute, Donald Rumsfeld and how to save local democracy. Oh, and we’re nearly halfway through our democratic year!

VC, ER and SOPNs

We need your help for November’s by-elections, we met a VC, and we nearly meet the Queen. Sort of.

New York 🛬 London 🚂 Cardiff

We’re hiring in London, we’re reflecting further on our NY tour, we’re in Cardiff for, er, jelly, and we’ve entered Sprint #7!

Democracy Needs You! (And It Pays)

We’re looking for a contractor to come help out with the London elections, from February through May 2018. A good chance to get into civic tech! Apply now or pass it on!

Where Do I Vote? On Tour!

This week we’re comparing notes on polling station finders with Democracy Works.

The One Where We're In Brooklyn

How you doin’? (We’re in New York!)

The Democracy That Never Sleeps

A mini-blog this week, largely previewing next week’s New York field trip!

Rolling by-elections, Welsh electoral reform and how we change the world

In this week’s blog we’re excited about by-elections and asking for your help to get more information on by-election candidates. We’re looking again at how we change the world; we’re in Cardiff for a consultation on electoral reform in Wales; and we’re after councillors’ email addresses.

What did users make of Where Do I Vote?

In this week’s blog, it’s a Where Do I Vote? user feedback special, with some highlights from the full report we published last week. We’re also asking for recommendations for folks we should meet in New York next month, and thinking — as always — about stickers.

The One Where We Meet A Minister

This week: we meet a Minister! We chat to potential board members! We receive nice mentions from kind people! Obama makes an appearance. Happy international day of democracy, everyone!

A Time Before Democracy Club

We’re onto Sprint #4, we’re writing to the House of Lords, and we’re learning about organisations doing this ‘make democracy better’ thing for a bit longer than us…

Citizenship, civic education and identity — in a digital age

Read our written submission to the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Education.

By-elections, board progress and using London as a lab

A short week as the country limbers up to return to politicsland, here’s an update on by-elections, board members and London as laboratory.

Sprint 3 and 28 by-elections

We’re coming to the end of Sprint #3 where we’ve fixed bugs, discovered 28 elections and started on a system to get candidates for them all.

Becoming part of the Democracy Club community

Joe’s away this week so we handed the Friday Blog spot over to Alex, one of our volunteers, to talk about his experience of getting involved with Democracy Club over the last few months.

AddressBase and openness

The closed address database in the UK forces us to into a trade off between openness and accuracy.

We're looking for new board members

Are you the heroine democracy needs? Read up what we’re looking for and then apply — or pass this on to someone you know!

The Second Sprint

A few days into Sprint #2, we’ve published the polling location lookup data per local authority, our Trello boards are working well, we’re talking leaflets and boards. Jump in!

Always in beta: evolving our approach

This week we reflect on how we’ve changed our approach to collecting data for Where Do I Vote over the past couple of years, and what we’ve learned from it.

Is it summer yet?

We review our reviews, we’re trying to get data/feedback from partners, and we’ve a new way of working: please come and join in!

The Road to May 2018

Having reviewed the last year and workshopped ‘what’s next’, we’ve now drafted our goals for the year to May 2018. We’d love your feedback!

Review of the Year!

We launched our May ‘16 — June ‘17 annual report at a party in London.

Under the hood of Where Do I Vote

Our blog posts tend to focus on talking about objectives and outcomes rather than implementation details, but in order to handle the challenges of a general election our websites make use of some interesting performance optimisations. For the more technically-minded, Democracy Club developer Chris Shaw provides a glimpse under the hood of Where Do I Vote.

A Full House (...Nearly)

A quick recap of the last seven weeks; some figures on people we reached; and an invitation to take part in what happens next!

Seven weeks

The polling stations have closed. The exit poll is published. I expect you’re glued to the TV.

But before the results come in, let’s take a moment to look back over what we’ve achieved in just seven weeks.

Who are Britain's new MPs?

The election hasn’t happened yet, but we already know who’s going to be elected - at least in safe seats. Here’s our guide to the new MPs in Britain’s safest seats.

Three last things you can do to help voters before election day

Last-minute tasks to help democracy!

Five-And-A-Half Days To Go

Facebook links to us from the newsfeed; we’ve a new polling stations widget; and, help us make happy constituencies. It’s Fridayblog!

Five Ways To Help Democracy This Weekend

Here are some small things you can do to help make democracy work better for everyone.

Thirteen Days To Go — What’s Happening And How You Can Help

It’s the calm before the storm. With two weeks to go, here’s where are and what we need to do next.

Nineteen Days To Go!

We’ve got all the candidates — now the race is on to provide rich information on them, and get it, and where to vote info, to millions of people before E-Day.

650 volunteers wanted...

You’ve got to search for the hero inside your constituency. Can you help?

The Day After And Thirty-Four Days Before

It’s the day after the local elections: results, feedback and that other election.

What should you do on the day before an election?

What to do on Weds 3 May — as a candidate, a voter and a volunteer. (And a dog)

Six days until the local elections; 41 until the general election

We ask you to share WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk with friends and family; we celebrate crowdsourcing; and the game’s afoot for the general election.

The Long Short Week

General election! Here’s what’s happening at Democracy Club. Get involved!

We think there’s still a local election on 4 May...

Meanwhile…in the local elections, we’ve completed our first pass through the local nomination papers and the open data is out in the wild.

It's #GE2017

There’s going to be a general election on 8 June. Help us to help voters!

Four weeks — and 3,165 PDFs — to go!

Crowdsourcing for England and Wales is go; we’ve a new feature coming soon; and we need your help on a candidate photo policy.

It's the five-week countdown

Who’s standing in Scotland? How much does it cost to be mayor? And come join our open meetings.

And we're off! (In Scotland, anyway)

We need your help to find official lists of candidates for the Scottish local elections. Instructions within!

Now we are three

Brought to you from sunny (not true) Bristol, we welcome our first employee, bring back WhereDoIVote.co.uk, and shout about crowdsourcing hustings data.

Eight Weird Things About Tomorrow’s City Of London Elections

We look at some of the unusual aspects of the City of London’s local elections. Features wardmotes, beadles and Morgan Freeman.

The 4,314 times when postcodes aren't good enough

4,314 UK postcodes are split across council boundaries. Here’s why it matters and what we’re doing about it.

We’re On The Highway To May

With just under two months to go before the local elections, we’re reviewing the progress made on our 2017 election goals. We’d also like you to test our new Quests feature. And we’re in Warwickshire for polling location data.

The day after #AE17 and a round-up from the week

It’s the day-after-the-election-before in Northern Ireland, we’ve an update on election boundaries, you might have noticed the blog’s looking a little fancier, and we’re eagerly awaiting the City of London election candidates.

Ordnance Survey are getting in the way of open election data

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) created data about elections months ago and Ordnance Survey are getting in the way by blocking its publication until after the elections in May. This means we can’t tell millions of people what elections they have this May.

The One With Snow In It

Last week saw Democracy Club on the road — from the English Channel to the Peak District. This blog is about our adventures. And we catch you up on crowdsourcing, polling stations and ask you what you want from a new(ish) DC website.

"An Invaluable Service for Citizens"

We were mentioned in the keynote speech at the Association of Electoral Administrators annual conference in Brighton.

We’re go for May 2017! And, When Is A Candidate Not A Candidate?

The local elections in May are looming large — our crowdsourcing tool is live now. We’re also committing to track results (at least for FPTP elections) in May. We’ve got questions about how we should verify candidates, and our first Democracy Club: Labs project. All this — and some treats — all in your Friday democrablog.

Our candidates crowdsourcer is live for May 2017!

Crowdsourcing candidates for May is go! Local elections are happening everywhere across Scotland and Wales, and in parts of the UK. Gotta catch ‘em all.

The Making Of Every Election

We go into detail about how we’re creating the UK’s first open election database — and there’s an invite to join us for a chat about results data.

Help us find every candidate for the new Northern Ireland Assembly

We’re crowdsourcing again! This time for the 2 March elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly. We explain how our Every Election data is in use; remind you, dear reader, why we do this at all; and give some tips on getting the data.

Brexit — what data and tools does the UK need?

A starter-for-ten from Richard Pope, which points to the urgent need for better data and crowdsourcing tools to work on Brexit. What can and should be done in this space?

What do you think of our plans for 2017?

We’ve drafted our goals or aims for 2017 — under the areas of Data, Apps, Labs and the Club — and we’d like you to review them.

Wanted: An accountant

We’re looking for an accountant. Please spread the word!

'Twas The Blog Before Christmas

In which we review our first full year in operation. We look back at some of the goals for the elections of 2016 — those we met, and those we missed. And how many calories were consumed doing so.

Live from Paris

A special edition of the blog coming from L’Elysee en Paris for the Open Government Summit. And there’s some very welcome news on funding.

The Grand Tour

Democracy Club joins mySociety’s annual retreat on Exmoor, then schleps from Taunton to Manchester to talk post-fact politics, then heads to London for catch-ups with the Electoral Commission and Matt Warman MP.

Keep on keeping on

An update on where-to-vote data, we’re interviewed by Kirklees Democracy Commission and we publish the feedback on WhoCanIVoteFor, which is a must-read.

Every Election

We’re building an open database of every election in the UK. This blog explains why and how we’re doing it.

Elections and young people. What can we do differently?

The last of three posts covering our research into young people and elections. In particular, we make a few recommendations as to a target group, tone of voice, and highlight the key problems that have to be overcome. And we invite everyone to get involved…

Elections and young people. What works to increase voter registration?

In the second of three blogs on young people and voting, we examine what efforts have been made to increase registration — and ask whether we know what works.

Elections and young people. Who are we talking about, and what's stopping them?

The first post in a three-part series on voter registration and turnout of young people in the UK. In this post, researcher Alex Blandford asks what we actually mean by ‘young people’ and examines the problems young people face.

The Road to May 2017

In this fortnight’s post: eyes on the prize for May 2017, working out how to learn about every election in the UK and we plug some events that you won’t want to miss.

Hello Cambridge, hello Scotland! (And Audis for everyone)

A mini-blog this week, in between running around to meetings and Sym moving house. If you want to talk Democracy Club in Cambridge — let us know!

How We Didn’t Raise Any Money Over The Summer...And What We Do Next

In the first Friday blog for some time — hi! — we sketch out what we applied for, and where else we might be able to raise cash. We’ve got a new idea specifically about crowdfunding from organisations and we’d love your thoughts!

What's the future of the UK's Electoral Commission?

The UK’s Electoral Commission is carrying out a full strategic review of its future. We made some suggestions.

La rentrée - back to democracy school

What we did on our summer holidays, and our immediate priorities now we’re back. Plus delicious hints at blogs to come. Welcome back!

Where Do 131,474 people vote?

The polls have closed, there isn’t an exit poll, the live coverage is struggling to know what do say for the next few hours.

Making local elections better, finding polling stations, watching GOV.UK/register-to-vote

We asked #localgovcamp how to make local elections better. Here’s what they said. (Oh and the government’s voter registration site went down. Oops.) And a status report on finding London’s polling stations…

How The British Library Used Democracy Club Data To Record Changing Nature of Elections

In this guest post, Jerry Jenkins, emerging media curator at the British Library, explains how the library was able to take advantage of Democracy Club’s candidates data for the 2015 General Election.

8 out of 10 cats have registered to vote in your area

In this week’s blog: our voter registration experiment launches, we pursue London’s councils for their polling station data and we think about funding sources.

Can your peers motivate you to register to vote?

In which we do some peer pressure for voter registration, crank up on the polling-station-finder-data-generator (i.e. emailing lots of councils) and do some work on fundraising.

Looking back, looking ahead

We point at our review of the elections earlier this month, and we look ahead to the giant looming referendum. We’re excited to announce we’re doing a quick sprint on voter registration. And we’re trying to expand coverage of our polling station finder. Help us out!

What's next?

The day after the day and night before. Looking back at elections, voters and digital services. And looking ahead, to what we want to do next.

One Day In April. Five Days in May. And Then Some More Days While We Get Results.

It’s the last Friday blog before polling day. With six days to go, will they find out about all by-elections? Will they find a media partner to get the data to millions? What are they planning to do with their bank holiday? (Oh, of course). Let’s go!

Two weeks to go! Three calls to action!

Two weeks to go to 5 May. Cleaning up errors, merging duplicated candidates, and why you’re funding a £5bn infrastructure project for the 20th century.

They Said It Couldn't Be Done (or, "How we know about every candidate in every election this May")

A team of amazing volunteers crowdsourced the details of 12,000 candidates for May 2016. Here’s how. And what’s next.

20 days left. 10,000 edits down. We’re going to make it.

Friday blog! In which there’s some titanic effort to add candidates, we highlight a couple of use cases, we welcome Lamby to the Big Somerset House - and we wonder where we’re going to get our soup from next.

It's April already. Nobody panic. Don't Panic.

In which we launch WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk and seek your keen-eyed feedback upon such website, resurrect ElectionLeaflets, announce a new Open Election Results project, and beg for moar data on candidates. Clickedy-click. (Tappedy-tap. Whatever. Devices.)

Week 12! The Finale! (Or ‘You Know When You’ve Been Incubated’)

The sun is setting on our BGV experience. (Image as metaphor alert). Roundabouts for democracy. Announcing Who Can I Vote For, introducing Derrick. And so much more. Get reading.

TGIGF

Thank Geoff It’s Good Friday. A very short post the day after Demo Day, at which fun was had, and Tim built a new homepage. Which is nice.

Week 10: 70 Days In...

Ten weeks in, there are signs in the blog post that Joe is losing grip on reality. But also - we launch a polling station finder in Wales, we announce that CandidateFinder (TM) is coming soon, and we ask if anyone knows the queen.

A mention from the minister

Leighton Andrews talked about us in an answer to a written question to The Welsh Assembly

The One Where We Don’t Have Much Time Left

In which we mention some meetings with academics, librarians, machinists, and we begin to have an idea of what happens next. Also, there’s no time! Argh.

To Wales! For there is data there.

In which there are leeks, Shakespeare and good things from Wales. Also announcing the beta launch of the candidate crowdsourcer - get involved!

A reply to Ordnance Survey

Last week we wrote about how hard working out where UK elections are because of the underlying data that is provided, in part, by Ordnance Survey.

They were kind enough to leave a comment explaining more at the bottom of that post.

Here is our reply to them

It’s Democracy Club meets Glastonbury Festival. Sort of.

Glastonbury, Wales, Makerversity, Candidates, Research. All this and our theory of change… IT’S WEEK SEVEN.

Poor mapping data is harming the UK's democracy

We want to do something simple. We want to let everyone in the UK know what elections they are able to vote in on the 5th of May.

That’s it. Do I, an eligible voter in a country that is proud of its old democracy, have an election in the next 10 weeks, or not?

What's in a club?

We’re six weeks in. We’re halfway through being incubated. Cracks in the egg are starting to appear, something is hatching.

Week 5: Feeling the (white) heat

Week five in BGV, in which Harold Wilson makes an appearance. As does the semblance of a more strategic approach to what we do. And we’re in Huddersfield.

'Service registers' on governmental websites

Our proposal for all government websites to publish a sort of machine readable ‘index’ of all the services and data they offer, with URLs to these services.

The One Where Democracy Club Meets A Venture Capitalist

Week 4 update from the bowels of Somerset House. The Thames is lapping at the door. The mice are building boats. We’ve built a new thing for you to test, gained some insights into our potential business models and learned about why it’s incredibly unlikely that we’re ever going to raise VC.

Timetable of legal deadlines for May 2016 elections

We scour PDFs and take the dates out and put them in a Google Calendar so you don’t have to. Notice of election, statement of persons nominated, notice of polls etc. For all the UK elections in May 2016.

Week Three in the Big Somerset House

It’s week three in the Big Somerset House. And the housemates are determined to write a blogpost that doesn’t smash through the 600-words-that-people-might-actually-read-limit.

A new prototype to look at, two business models to consider, EURef thoughts, mice, and a new team introduced.

How can the EU Referendum be better for everyone?

Democracy Club and Newspeak house will host an event on the 8th of February to discuss how the civic tech community can work together on the EU referendum.

How (not) to make money

Week two, and the democracy thunder keeps rolling. In this week’s episode: how not to make money, how to attend a lot of meetings, and we introduce Bright Little Labs.

Day 5 in the incubator...

In which we review the first week at Bethnal Green Ventures, discuss the quality of bacon sandwich available in Somerset House, and reminisce about the bowler-hatted civil servants that once ran the place.

Help us make an ID per election in the UK

In order to make Democracy better, we need better basic infrastructure. This starts with being able to identify every election we have.

More elections: our plans for 2016

Fewer than 200 days to go til the UK goes to the polls again! Here’s what we’re planning for 2016…

Why doesn’t Google know where I should vote?

It’s election day. It’s late, and you’re tired. Because in the UK, elections, unlike royal weddings, don’t warrant a day off work, so you’ve only just got home. Somewhere is a small piece of card that was delivered to your house several weeks ago that had the address of your polling station, and a little map of where it is. But now you can’t find it, you’re searching under the sofa and in that drawer in the kitchen, but it’s gone.

Data feeds of newly elected MPs from YourNextMP.com

Here’s a technical post about our plans. Contact us if you would like to build something from our data.

Licensing polling district data

As we previously posted, Democracy Club have a project to gather all the data on polling stations and polling districts in the UK.

When you have the CV of the candidates at a hustings

“We could go to the hustings, and hand out the CVs, and ask questions about
 them!”

What should I be doing in the run-up to the General Election?

In 14 days time, on the 7th of May, the people of Britain will be voting to decide who runs the country for the next 5 years. What should you be doing between now and then? Here’s your election run-up survival pack.

How can you take 3 minutes this sunny weekend to make democracy better?

It’s a glorious weekend. You’re dusting down the barbecue, you’re poking around in the garden. You probably weren’t thinking about the election. But plenty of people are. This weekend hundreds of political party activists will take to the streets to post election leaflets to thousands of homes. In order to watch what the parties are saying, Democracy Club has helped build an election leaflets archive - and we’d love 4 minutes of your time out of the sun to help pack it with data!

Nomination papers are out – YourNextMP.com is on the case

We’ve been collecting data on candidates for the General Election since November. Finally, councils have released their version: but in 400+ PDFs!

The battle for the most popular day for Hustings is on as MeetYourNextMP passes 500 events.

Our website that crowdsources a list of all the independent hustings events around the UK, MeetYourNextMP, has just reached a milestone as it now lists over 500 events!

How ‘polling station finder’ helps councils

The local authority that voters pay their council tax to might not be the one that administers polling for their parliamentary seat.

Find your polling station

We’ve tried to make it easy to find out who your local candidates are. We’ve tried to make it easy to see their professional and educational experience. And we’ve tried to highlight opportunities to meet them in person.

But of course, there’s one more crucial step - assuming you’ve already registered. And that’s actually knowing where to go vote.

Developers, we need your help.

We have just over 50 days to go until the election, and we have a chance to make a real difference to the way people interact with it, but we can’t do it alone.

Wordpress plugin for MeetYourNextMP.com

If you run a blog using the WordPress platform, perhaps one about your town or region, it is straight forward to add a list of election events in your local area. This helps to inform your visitors and gives them opportunities to meet their possible next MP!

Emailing 1,800 people

To help make YourNextMP.com the best list of candidates there is, we emailed 1,800 candidates from 2010, asking them if they were standing again.

Help from designers wanted!

We’re after help from any and all sorts of designers to make our sites better.

A fair fight?

Nesta have an interesting blog post up about big data at the next election. It’s painful reading: it makes it sound like the election campaign will be something done by politicians to the rest of us. (Again).

mySociety

Following on from yesterday’s post about some initial projects, here is a guest post from mySociety’s
Myf Nixon.

Mapping the projects

As I said on Sunday, keeping track of all the projects and tools out there is a little overwhelming sometimes.

The odd one out

In the past two or three years — that is, at any time since the Arab Spring, since the tsunami hit Fukushima, or since William and Kate got married — have you discussed politics?

Restarting

Although I wan’t involved in organizing Democracy Club before the 2010 election, I did get involved as a volunteer. I uploaded election leaflets that were shoved through my door (as well as getting everyone I knew to give me their leaflets to upload), called up my MP Richard Bacon, asking him why he hadn’t filled out the candidate survey and I even made a little project that stored the major party manifestoes and made them searchable.

We need to talk

We have a lot of plans and ideas for how to make democracy and elections better that we’ll be blogging and emailing about over the coming months.