The Brexit referendum was conducted on a stormy day, with heavy downpours of rain across much of the UK. Dark clouds were also circulating over the infrastructure and staff that run elections in the UK, however, as Alistair Clark and I show in a new article in Local Government Studies. We draw from original data…Read more Under Pressure: the UK’s Electoral Machinery in the Brexit Referendum

Elections around the world are plagued with the problem of unequal levels of participation. This can have profound consequences for election results, representation and policy outcomes. A special issue of Policy Studies has just been published focusing on the interventions that can be used to redress the turnout gap and other inequalities within the electoral…Read more Building inclusive elections

Automatic electoral registration (AER) has been proposed as policy to increase the number of people on the electoral register in the UK. The perception that automatic registration could significantly boost participation in democracy has led to cross party support including support by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in its 2014 report on voter engagement, and…Read more Is it Time for Automatic Voter Registration in the UK? Call for Views

My new book, Comparative Electoral Management, has now been published with Routledge. Two chapters are now freely available for download and a (much cheaper!) ebook version is available too The book aims to focus attention on the much understudied area of the implementation of elections. Electoral law is made in Parliament for the most part,…Read more Out now: Comparative Electoral Management

Christmas arguments may sometimes include debates about whether to watch the Queen’s Speech or not; whether stockings belong on the fireplace or the end of the bed, but they now include whether to relinquish school buildings to serve as polling stations.Education Minister Gavin Williamson started a Christmas-spat with a letter to all local authority chief…Read more Why schools are used for polling stations, as well as nativity plays

Alongside my superstar colleagues Holly Ann Garnett and Carla Luis, we have published a call for papers for our next workshop.  This time we are partnering up with the Carter Center and IFES.  More information here: http://www.electoralmanagement.com/lisbon-july-2020/ Drawing on previous year’s successful workshops, bringing together academics and practitioner on the study of elections and democracy,…Read more Call for Papers: Delivering Trusted Elections, Lisbon, July 2020

The politics of electoral administration continues worldwide, with debates about voter identification, electoral registers and more. My first book was published in 2012 on the partisan politics of electoral administration. It focuses on the politics within the UK, USA and Ireland but has broader comparative relevance. If you've not read it already, you can download…Read more The Politics of Election Administration