How strong is the democratic integrity of UK elections? Are turnout, candidacies and participation maximised?

The Democratic Audit is a long established project which has provided regular Audits of the quality of democracy in the UK. Originally set up in 1991 by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust through two partners – Charter88 and the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex – it was always a source of inspiration to me as an undergraduate student studying at the end of the 1990s (I’m showing my age).  I even tried to set up a student version of Charter 88 – getting fellow University of York students to sign the Charter.  The concept of the democratic audit spread to other countries through International IDEA.

It’s therefore a great honour to be able to contribute towards the 2017 Audit.

Here is my assessment of the quality of elections in the UK.

Since Finanical Crisis of 2007-8, austerity has been the dominant theme of UK public policy.  Successive governments have sought to cut back on public spending to reduce the budget deficit.  Austerity has been a key election issue, with cuts to schools and hospitals featuring prominently in election campaigns.

In this new article, with Tyrone Jervier, we set out how public sector cuts have fed into the management of the electoral process.

Here’s the abstract:

Concerns have been raised that insufficient funding has been affecting the delivery of elections in many countries. This paper presents a case study of England and Wales from 2010–2016. It demonstrates that many local authorities saw major real terms cuts and were increasingly over-budget. Those subject to cuts were less likely to undertake public engagement activities. State efforts to encourage voter participation may therefore be a casualty of austerity.

Download the article here (or ask me for a copy).

Jeremy Corbyn summarised many with his party’s result in the 2017 UK General Election.  Immediately after the election, I put his result into historical context in a piece for The Conversation:

Jeremy Corbyn’s stock has been on a wild ride in the last couple of years. When he was elected leader of the British Labour party in 2015, many of his parliamentary colleagues greeted him with disapproval and dismay. The ensuing 18 months of his leadership saw him stumble through various PR disasters, endure the scrutiny of a heavily critical mainstream press, and a botched parliamentary attempt to remove him.

He ultimately won a second leadership election in September 2016 thanks to a strong grassroots movement, and without gaining much credit or support among his colleagues.

But since then, things have changed dramatically. After a shock general election resultbrought two years of Conservative majority rule to an end and saw Labour surge to a once-unthinkable 40% of the vote, many of his harshest critics were falling over themselves to reverse their assessment. “I admit it,” was the tenor of the day, “I was wrong about Jeremy Corbyn.”

But in the level-headed mindset between between furious disapproval and euphoric reconciliation, how should Corbyn really be judged?

Read it all, here.

Image credit: Wikipedia.

It is general election night in the U.K.  In advance, here was my guide that I wrote for the night on The Conversation

I recently jointly presented research that I’m doing with colleagues from the Electoral Management Research Network (Leontine Loeber, Holly Ann Garnett and Carolien van Ham) at the 14th Conference of European Electoral Management Boards.  The conference took place in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The research looks at how the management of elections can be improved.  My focus is on the role of training, human resource management practices and employee experiences.

I was delighted that the conference provided support for project.  You can read more about the conference and project here.

We will present academic papers from the project at the ECPR conference in Oslo, in September.

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