STV headed for defeat in British Columbia?
Voters go to the polls in British Columbia on Tuesday to elect a new Provincial Parliament and vote for a second time on changing the electoral system in the province to the Single Transferable Vote...
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UK scandal brings flowering of reform ideas
Following the recent scandal in the UK, some senior figures in the Labour government have used the opportunity to push ahead with major democratic reforms: An intense cabinet-level debate is under way...
View ArticleJenkins reheated
With the resurgence of interest in proportional representation in the UK, and calls for an electoral reform referendum at the 2010 general election, I tracked down and read the report of the Jenkins...
View ArticleCameron pushes his own reforms
Following on from potential Labour leader Alan Johnson’s call for the implementation of proportional representation in the House of Commons, Conservative leader David Cameron has proposed his own raft...
View ArticleGuest post at FairVote Blog
I’ve been taking a break post-EU but will be back to usual transmissions soon, with a final concludig post on the EU and a couple of other posts. However, you may satisfy yourself in the meantime by...
View ArticleElectoral Reform Green Paper released
The federal government today released its second Electoral Reform Green Paper, following on from a Green Paper dealing with election funding released in December 2008. The document is a comprehensive...
View ArticleA tale of two systems
Last Saturday we saw state elections in Australia’s two smallest states. Both states have been governed by the Labor Party for a number of terms and saw a resurgent Liberal Party threaten the ALP’s...
View ArticleUK Labour chooses a new leader
The UK Labour Party is currently entering the final stages of a months-long process to choose a leader to succeed Gordon Brown, following their election defeat earlier this year. Prime Minister Gordon...
View ArticleAlice Springs Council: bad electoral systems at work
A friend recently referred me to an academic paper (PDF) produced by Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University. The paper discusses the electoral system used...
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The end of gerrymandering in California
I’ve blogged a few times over the last couple of years about the perverse processes used in most US states when drawing electoral boundaries for Congress and state legislatures. In a series of...
View ArticleVictorian local government election review – the rest of the story
Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about the Independent Local Government Electoral Review Panel in Victoria, chaired by former federal Liberal MP Petro Georgiou. In particular I focused on...
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SA Labor banning above-the-line preferences in upper house
The South Australian Labor government has released legislation to reform the voting system used for the South Australian upper house. Like the federal and NSW upper houses before it, the legislation...
View ArticleVictorian government vs local democracy
In the wake of the federal election you may have missed a story about how the Victorian government is planning to change the way that Victorian local councils are elected, something which will be...
View ArticleSouth Australian council voting – back to cheap and ugly?
South Australia is now the third state government to announce plans to tinker with the voting system for local councils this year, joining Queensland and Victoria. I’ve given cautious support for parts...
View ArticleVoting system change boosts Labor and Greens in Brisbane City
I posted back in March about the Queensland government’s proposed reforms to local government in that state. The reforms include a bunch of other changes to electoral finance and council procedures,...
View ArticleSA government proposes optional preferential voting
The South Australian government announced earlier this week that they plan to introduce legislation that will change the voting system from compulsory preferential voting (CPV) to optional preferential...
View ArticleNZ election – how thresholds could decide the majority
Labour has been doing very well in the polls in New Zealand, if a bit less well than they were earlier this year. It seems very likely that Labour will stay in government. But there are some scenarios...
View ArticleUK Labour chooses a new leader
The UK Labour Party is currently entering the final stages of a months-long process to choose a leader to succeed Gordon Brown, following their election defeat earlier this year. Prime Minister Gordon...
View ArticleAlice Springs Council: bad electoral systems at work
A friend recently referred me to an academic paper (PDF) produced by Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University. The paper discusses the electoral system used...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The end of gerrymandering in California
I’ve blogged a few times over the last couple of years about the perverse processes used in most US states when drawing electoral boundaries for Congress and state legislatures. In a series of...
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