mastodon 4.6.9Creating the digital foundations to support everyone's participation in democratic life. We built http://WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk and http://WhereDoIVote.co.uk. 🗳
📬With the final count concluded, we now have a full dataset of English local election results. All the votes cast for all the candidates - 18.5 million.
👇You can download the data from our candidate database: candidates.democracyclub.org.uk/data/shortcuts
✨ Many, many thanks to our volunteer contributors who have made this possible.
❗Please let us know if you spot any errors.
📝 We've made our lists, and checked them twice. 25,047 candidates have been nominated to stand in the English local elections on 7 May.
📊 The full list of parties and candidates can be found here: https://democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/04/13/2026-local-election-data-summary/
👀 Want to know who's on your ballot? https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/
🔏 Polls have closed!
⤴️ We have processed over 10 million postcode searches from the UK public in the last month.
Election day: 2,648,429
This week: 4,635,003
Since 1 April: 10,564,221
🤩 Enormous thanks to the electoral administrators and volunteers who made this possible.
Yesterday the government announced that it 'will repeal in full the power for Government to impose a strategy and policy statement on the Electoral Commission.'
This will meaningfully increase the independence of the UK's elections watchdog. The Commission itself has been calling for repeal since it was introduced in 2022.
This change of policy was announced during the second reading of the Representation of the People Bill: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-03-02/debates/702183A9-7B57-487C-9634-BF459DB65DB2/RepresentationOfThePeopleBill#main-content
📮 Received any election leaflets in the post recently?
📸 Before recycling, please consider snapping a photo and uploading it to https://electionleaflets.org/. Journalists, social scientists, historians and your fellow voters will thank you!
ℹ️ Over 1,000 leaflets have been added to the database this year alone!
#ukpolitics #localelections #scottishpolitics #welshpolitics #ukelections
🏴 Candidates for the 7 May Scottish Parliamentary elections were published last night. These are now all in our system, and voters can view their ballot papers by entering their postcode: https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/
🧮 437 candidates (18 parties) are fighting for the constituencies, while 589 candidates (27 parties) are on the regional lists.
You can download a spreadsheet of all the candidates here: https://candidates.democracyclub.org.uk/data/?election_date=2026-05-07&election_id=%5Esp
Six days to go until the local and devolved elections!
7 May will be the tenth English local election Democracy Club has covered, which means we've a decade's worth of candidate data to look back on: https://democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/04/30/candidates-and-manifestos-in-the-2026-local-and-devolved-elections/
Also in today's blog: all the manifestos you can eat.
New blog: the 2026 town and parish council elections.
- 376 town and parish councils are up for election this year.
- Due to a lack of candidates in most areas, only 24% of wards will see a poll on 7 May.
- 67% of seats have been won uncontested.
- 19% of seats will still be vacant after 7 May, because no-one came forward to contest them.
- Only 24% of candidates are representing a political party.
See the details:
https://democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/04/28/2026-parish-and-town-elections/
🗳️ The polls are open!
17,300 polling places are open today across Great Britain.
12,800 in England
2,400 in Scotland
2,100 in Wales
Find yours at https://wheredoivote.co.uk/
"There are over 25,000 candidates competing for just 5,000 seats - giving voters an "unprecedented" level of choice in one of the most hotly-contested local elections in history."
Democracy Club's candidate data underpins this great Sky News piece by Alicja Hagopian.
🏴 🏴 On 7 May, the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru will hold elections on new boundaries. This means that many voters will be in a new constituency or (in the case of Scotland) region.
Information about these changes is now displayed on Who Can I Vote For. After a Scottish or Welsh postcode is entered, click the 'boundary changes' link to be taken to a map of your new constituency.
Try it out: https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/
🗳️ 📆 The Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru and 136 English councils are holding elections on 7 May.
The Scottish Parliament will be using new boundaries, while the Senedd has an entirely new electoral system. Two brand new councils, East and West Surrey, will also be holding their first elections.
👇 Get all the details from our latest blog. 👇
https://democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/03/02/whats-up-for-election-in-2026/
