Our work, election news, and other items of interest.
Working with Welsh electoral services, the Welsh Government, and the Electoral Management Board for Wales, Democracy Club collected and published accessibility information for over 2,000 polling places across Wales.
Read moreA breakdown of the feedback we received for the 2026 elections!
Read more10 million!
Read moreWho’s standing, and what do they stand for?
Read moreA data summary of the 2026 local council elections in England.
Read moreFlexible voting pilots allow some voters to decide when and where they vote at the 2026 English local elections.
Read moreAll the candidates standing in the 2026 English local elections.
Read moreEverywhere in Scotland and Wales, along with large areas of England, will be going to the polls on 7 May.
Read moreWe run a year-round polling station finder and mapping product for EONI.
Read moreThe elections bill has the possibility to transform the way that election data works in the UK.
Read moreMark Longair, creator of our candidates crowd-sourcing website, died last Saturday.
Read moreWe take a look at our database of by-elections, and introduce a new feature.
Read moreWe used WhereDoIVote.co.uk to facilitate Walsall council’s polling district review consultation.
Read moreCommunity Governance Reviews keep parish and community councils in line. But they are hard to keep track of.
Read moreEarlier this month the government published its ‘Strategy for modern and secure elections’. We outline some of our ideas for digital implementation of this strategy.
Read moreA dive into the politics of England’s first tier of local government.
Read moreOur annual review of our election work and impact.
Read moreThe councils and candidates in the 2025 local council elections.
Read moreBig news from the Electoral Commission’s five-year plan.
Read moreThe candidates and parties standing in the 2025 English local elections.
Read moreWe take a look at the smallest set of local elections since 1975.
Read moreTotally tooting!
Read moreCelebrating a decade of postcodes, maps, and happy voters.
Read moreTwo hellos and a goodbye.
Read moreAll the candidates, parties and results of the 2024 English local council elections.
Read moreThe Electoral Commission published its GE report. We’re in it. Also some other things.
Read moreDomine Dirige Nos: “Lord direct us” (to the correct electoral registration portal).
Read moreStatutory election notices are not good. We think they can be better.
Read moreAn overview of why, when and where cancellations occur.
Read moreAre you passionate about strengthening democracy in the UK? Now’s your chance to make a difference!
Read moreWe’ve published our 2024 election report, and have lots to celebrate.
Read moreAn overview of the feedback we received for the 2024 General Election!
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreNumber really did go up.
Read moreThe demographics, past electoral histories, and biscuits of GE candidates.
Read moreThe most candidates ever! See the full list of parties standing.
Read moreData and resources for campaigners, journalists and researchers.
Read moreAn overview of the user feedback we received for the May 2024 local elections!
Read more2.3 million!
Read moreIt depends which question you’re asking.
Read moreOn 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!
Read moreWe’ve collected as much information as we can about candidates and political parties standing for election on 2 May in England and Wales.
Read moreAll the candidates standing in the 2024 local elections.
Read moreA short history of public information provision in UK electoral law.
Read moreA summary of the key dates and information about the upcoming elections in 2 May.
Read moreDemocracy Club’s polling station finder allows the BBC to provide its readers with the information they need to vote.
Read moreWe discuss our work tracking Electoral Change Orders, and look at some legal drama relating to proposed PCC reforms.
Read moreMore electoral reforms are on the way, this time in Scotland. We take a look at the newly introduced Scottish electoral reform bill.
Read moreDemocracy Club’s election candidate data allows the Fawcett Society to produce hard-hitting research on gender inequalities in British politics.
Read moreA reflection on the problems of collecting candidate statements at scale, and a proposed solution.
Read moreDemocracy Club’s data services have enabled the UK Electoral Commission to reach hundreds of thousands of voters with accurate pre-election information.
Read moreUpdates on Democracy Club’s recent projects.
Read moreThe Welsh Government uses Democracy Club’s voter information websites to reach voters with information about electoral reforms.
Read moreThe Welsh Government has introduced some new draft legislation to the Senedd that makes some potentially huge changes to the way Welsh elections work.
Read moreWe take a look at the UK’s register of political parties: its history, contents, and our plans to improve its accessibility.
Read moreA general election is on the way - here’s how we plan to empower voters, companies and campaigners to build the democracy we all deserve.
Read moreWhat went well? What didn’t? And what did our users think about it all?!
Read moreWe’ve recently been asked by the Electoral Commission to provide information about the Rutherglen and Hamilton West recall petition in our voting information API.
Read moreAs per tradition, number go up.
Read more241 councils and 8,519 councillors.
Read moreSome reflections on our impartiality.
Read moreAn overview of recent changes to Every Election and our elections model.
Read moreA summary of recent staffing changes at Democracy Club.
Read moreWe’ve published our report on the 2022 elections!
Read moreWe review the feedback left by users during the 2022 elections.
Read more1,903,142 postcode searches!
Read more18,000!
Read moreAn exclusive & idiosyncratic look at the elections in England, Scotland & Wales.
Read moreTranslations, SoPNs, and Sankeys.
Read moreThe state of the parties heading into the 2022 polls.
Read moreDemocracy Club’s mission is to make this year’s elections more accessible for everyone. Here’s how you can get involved!
Read moreThere’s lots going on in 2022, here’s what to expect…
Read moreIntroducing Mevan, with a reminder of what we do and why we do it.
Read moreDemocracy Club grows again, and gains a funder!
Read moreOver 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.
Read moreThere’s a whole world of council sub-committees to discover. Isn’t it exciting?
Read moreFor 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.
Read moreWe put the manic into Aldermanic.
Read moreJobs, election pilots, and much much more!
Read moreCould it be YOU?
Read moreOr, the Democracy Club summer show-and-tell.
Read moreIt’s election report time!
Read moreWhat’s the link between biscuits and voter information?
Read moreShort but sweet!
Read moreWe take a look at your feedback from May 6!
Read moreWe 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
Read moreDidn’t we do well?
Read moreMine’s a skittle alley. What about yours?
Read moreWe’re once again working with the Fawcett society to analyse the gender profile of candidates
Read moreWales, Scotland, and George Harrison- an unlikely connection
Read moreWe’ve made our lists, and we’ve checked them twice.
Read moreThree down, 9,997 to go.
Read moreOn 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
Read moreAn overview of some recent changes to everyone’s favourite election website.
Read moreVotes@16 is approaching in Wales- is our voting system ready?
Read moreHow many ballots will you have?
Read moreNow with 75% more team members, and 100% less certainty.
Read moreWe wish The Electoral Commission a happy birthday the only way we know how: by thinking about its future effectiveness.
Read moreWe’re hiring! Again!
Read moreA look at what’s to come in May 2021 and beyond.
Read moreNo one in the UK is responsible for the health or security of the UK’s democracy.
Read moreWe present a host of graphs (and a map!) in an attempt to understand the people behind the postcode searches.
Read moreAs 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.
Read moreWe announce our review of last year’s general election, and offer a few insights from Google Analytics, exclusive to our blog readers!
Read moreTurns out we’re more popular in Romania than we thought.
Read moreWhat’s going on a DemoClub towers? What can you crowdsource in the absence of election data?
Read moreIn which we address some extraordinary times.
Read moreWe add up all the seats to be elected in May, and Joe gets to chat to the House of Lords.
Read moreThe Grand Opening of some new(ish) spreadsheets — all to help voters at the May 2020 elections. Plus, try SuperWidget2!
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn which we review the 4,000 comments left by the users of Where Do I Vote? during the General Election.
Read moreA new year! We have May 2020’s elections in our sights…
Read moreWe’ve got all the results, some quick stats on data usage over the election… and What’s Next?
Read moreNon-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
Read moreOne week to go! We’re trying to get democracy on the election radar, glancing at the manifestos, and generally encouraging people to get involved.
Read moreRefreshing 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!
Read moreThree weeks to go.
Read moreOur crack squad of volunteers has now inputted all the data from every council and we can announce the number of candidates standing for GE2019!
Read moreThere are five weeks to go to GE2019!
Read moreIt’s happening: a general election on 12 December 2019. Here’s how you can help.
Read moreWe return to the subject of the API terms of use! Woohoo!
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreWe propose a new version of our API terms of use.
Read moreParliament returns, we start collecting candidate data for May 2020 and some news from Germany.
Read moreEditorial decision-making for Who Can I Vote For? and a round up what else is going on.
Read moreWe’re looking for a freelance developer, building our ideal-partner-for-GE2019 list, and improving the tools for ensuring quality data on Candidates.
Read moreLife comes at us pretty fast in this week’s Thursdayblog, which is an outline of GE2019 planning.
Read morePower-wombles, threats to democracy and a little bank holiday task…
Read moreWe’re on the search for the One Widget, plus we publish our lotto fund application and … a new sprint plan!
Read moreMP’s educational backgrounds; calls for evidence from the House of Lords; Snapchat; and some antique local government websites.
Read moreCitizens conventions, manifestos for democracy, pivotal moments in our democratic history, and a possible return of Democracy Club Book Club. Read on.
Read moreIt’s annual report time; we’re collecting PPC details; some thoughts on transparency in election campaigning; Snapchat; Voter ID; and more!
Read moreA recap of our Bath adventure, our work on improving Candidates and we’re collecting PPC data for GE20…19…?
Read moreIn 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!
Read moreThis 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.)
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…
Read moreTwelve months ago we set ourselves some goals. How did we get on? Find out in this all-new Thursdayblog.
Read moreMoney 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!
Read moreOur trusty elections assistant, Peter Keeling, leaves us today. In today’s special Fridayblog, he reflects on his wild adventures in democracy.
Read moreWe look back at the European Parliament elections in the UK.
Read moreBecause (a) we don’t have all the data, and (b) democracy is under-resourced in the UK.
Read moreJust six days to go: time to get out the vote and encourage everyone to vote in the European Parliament elections.
Read moreProgress 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!)
Read morePolls are closed, sports halls are quieter, and those crazy voters now expect to know who now represents them.
Read moreOne 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.
Read moreElections come around so quickly. Here’s some analysis of who’s standing. And one last push (okay, probably a penultimate push) for more data.
Read moreA 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?
Read moreCrowdsourcing for the local elections 2019 is underway! And there are more elections on the not-that-far-away horizon.
Read moreWe’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…
Read moreAs local elections draw closer, we’re keenly listening out to an announcement on local democracy by the BBC’s Director-General.
Read moreWestminster politics getting you down? Don’t worry — come party with us to make local democracy better!
Read moreThe latest party news, finding improvements to getting candidates data, we’re full speed ahead on polling locations and we’re in a report!
Read moreWhat 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?
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreWe’re looking for hosts for election parties! We’re also working hard on polling station data and Sym is in Huddersfield for #NotWestminster!
Read moreKicking off work on polling locations; introducing Peter, who’ll be helping on that; updates on candidates, hustings, wikidata and more!
Read moreIf you use our candidate CSV downloads, or CSV downloads from anyone else, we want your help and feedback!
Read moreThis 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!
Read moreWe launch candidate crowdsourcing for the May local elections! And we’re looking for more party hosts, research on election reminders, and introductions to unions.
Read moreA short Fridayblog in which we ask: would you like to host a crowdsourcing party this April? And we congratulate the French.
Read moreHappy New Year! Here’s the roadmap to the local elections of May 2019. And — a bonus treat — a quiz on political geographies!
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreIt’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!
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreWebsite changes, new donors, and lots of draft documents for your comments! Plus… what are we going to do if there’s another referendum?
Read moreAnother 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!
Read moreIt’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.
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreWhere 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!
Read moreIt’s a frosty fridayblog today, packed with history, centenaries, events and hollywood films.
Read moreJobs jobs jobs! And thoughts on better crowdsourcing of candidate data; pitching for chocolate money; doctors for democracy; and more!
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreEarlier 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?
Read moreAre there are enough people who can write a little code and care enough to maintain one or more councillor scrapers?
Read moreAs 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.
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreA new fellowship of wombles (that’s you), talking accessible elections with the Cabinet Office, and there is new funding available for saving civic discourse.
Read moreThis 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.
Read moreWe look back from the future, we’re rebuilding our crowdsourcing platform and we’re going to lots of events.
Read moreIn 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!
Read moreFridayblog 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.
Read moreIt’s a short, overly hot Fridayblog today. Help us out by finding some results data and then join our new book club!
Read moreWe 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!
Read moreHelp us gather the SuperThursday results and to prepare in case of a snap election. Also, a really long reading list.
Read moreBe 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.
Read moreThis week we celebrate the winners of the first National Democracy Awards, plot with various London-based institutions and we need your crowdsourcing help!
Read moreNew 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.
Read moreWe’re on the road meeting electoral administrators, funders, influencers, anyone that’ll hang out with us. Plus, a SuperThursday!
Read moreIt’s our report on the last year! All the stats and analysis you need. Plus emojis.
Read moreWe’re pondering what’s next for the year ahead, there’s a sneak preview of our annual report and more!
Read moreIt’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!
Read moreRose bids farewell and reflects on her three and a bit months at Democracy Club.
Read moreWe collated all the local election results! And we’re having a summer event that you should come to.
Read moreResults, election day performance, celebrity tweets and what’s next!
Read moreSix days to go! And we still need your help to help voters. We also look at the gender divide in the local election stats.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn this week’s blog we’re celebrating progress, learning from the parties we threw in three cities and plugging the National Democracy Awards.
Read moreElection parties! Progress on polling stations! And new data on ‘what people search for on election day’.
Read moreA micro-blog announcing our data parties on 10th April — come join us! Also, we’ve added voter ID notices to our polling station finder.
Read moreSome user feedback, a new-look polling station finder, a comparison of the voter ID pilots and the data world comes to Bristol!
Read moreThe Voter ID pilot is coming to a council election near you. But which councils? And what ID is acceptable?
Read moreCrowdsourcing parties, machine learning, the collapse of democracy — it’s Fridayblog!
Read moreKnow 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?
Read moreIn 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?
Read moreToday’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!
Read moreIt’s a short, snow-day Fridayblog, and we’re ready toboggan crowdsourcing candidates!
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreWe’re in sunny Huddersfield for the local democracy conference known as #NotWestminster. And your usual Fridayblog updates!
Read moreWe 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!
Read moreOur 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!
Read moreIn this week’s blog, we celebrate some top volunteering, catch up on voter ID pilots, and we’re meeting people and reading stuff!
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreDemocracy meet-ups in Huddersfield and London, the loss of a Minister, and what should Democracy Club do next?
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIt 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!
Read moreThis week we visit the BBC, consider research priorities, prepare for making a New Plan and we get some rare good news about boundaries!
Read moreElectionLeaflets.org gets the academic treatment, a sketch of a plan for a general election, getting information on by-election candidates and some other stuff!
Read moreIt’s a Fridayblog exclusive! Democracy Club has a new board of directors!
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreAs 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.
Read moreIn 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!
Read moreWe need your help for November’s by-elections, we met a VC, and we nearly meet the Queen. Sort of.
Read moreWe’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!
Read moreWe’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!
Read moreThis week we’re comparing notes on polling station finders with Democracy Works.
Read moreHow you doin’? (We’re in New York!)
Read moreA mini-blog this week, largely previewing next week’s New York field trip!
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreThis 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!
Read moreWe’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…
Read moreRead our written submission to the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Education.
Read moreA short week as the country limbers up to return to politicsland, here’s an update on by-elections, board members and London as laboratory.
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreJoe’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.
Read moreThe closed address database in the UK forces us to into a trade off between openness and accuracy.
Read moreAre you the heroine democracy needs? Read up what we’re looking for and then apply — or pass this on to someone you know!
Read moreA 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!
Read moreThis 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.
Read moreWe 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!
Read moreHaving 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!
Read moreWe launched our May ‘16 — June ‘17 annual report at a party in London.
Read moreOur 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.
Read moreA quick recap of the last seven weeks; some figures on people we reached; and an invitation to take part in what happens next!
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreLast-minute tasks to help democracy!
Read moreFacebook links to us from the newsfeed; we’ve a new polling stations widget; and, help us make happy constituencies. It’s Fridayblog!
Read moreHere are some small things you can do to help make democracy work better for everyone.
Read moreIt’s the calm before the storm. With two weeks to go, here’s where are and what we need to do next.
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreYou’ve got to search for the hero inside your constituency. Can you help?
Read moreIt’s the day after the local elections: results, feedback and that other election.
Read moreWhat to do on Weds 3 May — as a candidate, a voter and a volunteer. (And a dog)
Read moreWe ask you to share WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk with friends and family; we celebrate crowdsourcing; and the game’s afoot for the general election.
Read moreGeneral election! Here’s what’s happening at Democracy Club. Get involved!
Read moreMeanwhile…in the local elections, we’ve completed our first pass through the local nomination papers and the open data is out in the wild.
Read moreThere’s going to be a general election on 8 June. Help us to help voters!
Read moreCrowdsourcing for England and Wales is go; we’ve a new feature coming soon; and we need your help on a candidate photo policy.
Read moreWho’s standing in Scotland? How much does it cost to be mayor? And come join our open meetings.
Read moreWe need your help to find official lists of candidates for the Scottish local elections. Instructions within!
Read moreBrought to you from sunny (not true) Bristol, we welcome our first employee, bring back WhereDoIVote.co.uk, and shout about crowdsourcing hustings data.
Read moreWe look at some of the unusual aspects of the City of London’s local elections. Features wardmotes, beadles and Morgan Freeman.
Read more4,314 UK postcodes are split across council boundaries. Here’s why it matters and what we’re doing about it.
Read moreWith 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.
Read moreIt’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.
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreLast 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.
Read moreWe were mentioned in the keynote speech at the Association of Electoral Administrators annual conference in Brighton.
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreCrowdsourcing candidates for May is go! Local elections are happening everywhere across Scotland and Wales, and in parts of the UK. Gotta catch ‘em all.
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreA 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?
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreWe’re looking for an accountant. Please spread the word!
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreA 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.
Read moreDemocracy 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.
Read moreAn 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.
Read moreWe’re building an open database of every election in the UK. This blog explains why and how we’re doing it.
Read moreThe 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…
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreA 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!
Read moreIn 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!
Read moreThe UK’s Electoral Commission is carrying out a full strategic review of its future. We made some suggestions.
Read moreWhat we did on our summer holidays, and our immediate priorities now we’re back. Plus delicious hints at blogs to come. Welcome back!
Read moreThe polls have closed, there isn’t an exit poll, the live coverage is struggling to know what do say for the next few hours.
Read moreWe 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…
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreWe 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!
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreIt’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!
Read moreTwo 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.
Read moreA team of amazing volunteers crowdsourced the details of 12,000 candidates for May 2016. Here’s how. And what’s next.
Read moreFriday 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.
Read moreIn 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.)
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreThank 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.
Read moreTen 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.
Read moreLeighton Andrews talked about us in an answer to a written question to The Welsh Assembly
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn which there are leeks, Shakespeare and good things from Wales. Also announcing the beta launch of the candidate crowdsourcer - get involved!
Read moreLast 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
Read moreGlastonbury, Wales, Makerversity, Candidates, Research. All this and our theory of change… IT’S WEEK SEVEN.
Read moreWe 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?
Read moreWe’re six weeks in. We’re halfway through being incubated. Cracks in the egg are starting to appear, something is hatching.
Read moreWeek 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.
Read moreOur 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.
Read moreWeek 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.
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreIt’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.
Read moreDemocracy 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.
Read moreWeek 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.
Read moreIn 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.
Read moreIn order to make Democracy better, we need better basic infrastructure. This starts with being able to identify every election we have.
Read moreFewer than 200 days to go til the UK goes to the polls again! Here’s what we’re planning for 2016…
Read moreIt’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.
Read moreHere’s a technical post about our plans. Contact us if you would like to build something from our data.
Read moreAs we previously posted, Democracy Club have a project to gather all the data on polling stations and polling districts in the UK.
Read more“We could go to the hustings, and hand out the CVs, and ask questions about
them!”
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.
Read moreIt’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!
Read moreWe’ve been collecting data on candidates for the General Election since November. Finally, councils have released their version: but in 400+ PDFs!
Read moreOur 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!
Read moreThe local authority that voters pay their council tax to might not be the one that administers polling for their parliamentary seat.
Read moreWe’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.
Read moreWe 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.
Read moreIf 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!
Read moreTo 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.
Read moreWe’re after help from any and all sorts of designers to make our sites better.
Read moreNesta 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).
Read moreFollowing on from yesterday’s post about some initial projects, here is a guest post from mySociety’s
Myf Nixon.
As I said on Sunday, keeping track of all the projects and tools out there is a little overwhelming sometimes.
Read moreIn 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?
Read moreAlthough 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.
Read moreWe 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.
Read more