Latest Posts

• Voter ID and turnout in GE2024

  Since the last General Election one of the most significant changes to the UK election process has been the introduction of photo ID for voters voting in-person. Although it was piloted in 2018 and 2019 and was first used in local elections from 2023, Thursday’s general election was the first time all would-be voters had to show ID.

• Why we may never know the full effects of voter ID

  In May’s local elections, voters in England had to show photographic ID before they could vote. This was the first time English voters (but not the first time voters in the UK) have had to show photographic ID to vote. Since not all people who have the right to vote have photographic ID, it’s natural to ask whether this new requirement had an effect on the number of people who voted.

• The Commons vote on abortion clinics and constituency opinion

  There seems to be no strong link with constituency opinion in a recent Commons vote on abortion clinics.

• Polarization and the number of parties

  For a long time, political scientists have treated the polarization of a party system as the second most important characteristic of a party system behind the number of parties. But they've typically taken these two things to be unrelated.

• Low income voters

  For the first time, more people on low incomes voted for the Conservative Party than for Labour. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives are now more popular with people struggling to make ends meet than with wealthy voters.