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

Speculation has it that an early general election is around the corner. If it does come, it won’t be the first time that we’ve had an unexpected election this year.  The European Parliamentary elections were not supposed to happen.  But happen they did, only weeks after local elections. They didn’t go to plan.  There were…Read more Missing Millions, Still Missing: New Reporting

The Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill is currently working it's way through the Welsh Assembly.  Among other things, the bill will lower the minimum voting age for Assembly elections to 16. I was fortunate enough to be able to be asked to serve as an independent adviser to the Assembly's Finance Committee in their scrutiny…Read more Implementing votes at 16 in Wales

Nearly all countries around the world now hold elections at some level, but the quality of those elections often vary. Although there have been many volumes on the role and effects of electoral systems and other aspects of the election, the process of managing the election is often overlooked. In a special issue of International…Read more The new international research agenda studying electoral management

Three years ago, the Law Commission published an important report proposing the consolidation of electoral law across the UK. This is yet to be taken forward by the government. It was therefore good news that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee recently launched an inquiry asking how urgent these reforms were, whether they government had…Read more Electoral Law Inquiry

#DeniedMyVote trended on Twitter in the UK yesterday, as many people faced problems casting their vote in the European Parliamentary elections. The focus was often on the poll workers who were the bearers of bad news to EU citizens that their name had been crossed off the register - because they had not completed the…Read more The causes of #DeniedMyVote

Having been a Game of Throne addict for past however many years, I couldn't resist using some of the concepts from leadership theory that I've been working on to write a short blog.. Warning: this contains spoilers for Game of Thrones, series eight. Alongside many other aspects of the final series of Game of Thrones,…Read more Game of Thrones and Political Leadership Theory

After nearly a hundred years without serious modification, the Victorian system of electoral registration in Britain was radically reformed by the Coalition government from 2014, as a new online system of electoral registration was introduced. Not only that, registration was switched to be on an individual basis. And you had to provide your national insurance…Read more Good news: automatic re-registration may be on the way