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The Democracy Club Ballotin: 2023 election report

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 14:18:00 +0000

The Democracy Club Ballotin: 2023 election report

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Dear Democracy Club Supporter,

It’s been another busy year at Democracy Club. During the elections in May, we provided trusted information to more UK voters than at any previous English or Northern Irish local election.

More than two million postcode searches from the UK public.
Major new data partnership with BBC News.
Collected polling station data from every council taking part.
26,570 candidates added to the database.
92% user satisfaction with our polling station finder.

Find out more in our full report on the 2023 elections.

Towards a general election

The next UK parliamentary election is due by January 2025. We want this to be our most successful election yet, and to that end we’re seeking new partners and donors to help us reach millions more voters with trusted, non-partisan election information.

We’ve written a summary of what we do to introduce our work to potential partners or new volunteers. In the interest of scaling our impact and reaching new audiences, we’re especially keen to reach employers who want to engage their employees with our election tools. If you or someone you know are interested in collaborating, please drop us a line at hello@democracyclub.org.uk.

The next scheduled UK elections are due on 2 May 2024. This is a big set of elections which will involve all areas of England and Wales: Police and Crime Commissioners, the London Assembly, and mayoral elections in London, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the West Midlands, West and North Yorkshire, and the North East. We'll be covering these across all our services as usual.

Access to democracy is a fundamental human right

2024 will see a number of pivotal elections in the UK, and we want to ensure that everyone is able to access and participate in them.

Democracy Club's election tools are free for individuals, but not free to build, maintain and expand. Our supporters help ensure that we are able to reach every UK voter with non-partisan and reliable information on elections. Will you join them? Donate today.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

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The Democracy Club Ballotin - What's up for Election in 2023?

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 12:25:00 +0000

The Democracy Club Ballotin - What's up for Election in 2023?

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The Democracy Club Ballotin - What's up for Election in 2023?

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 06 Mar 2023.

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Dear [%full_name | Democracy Club Supporter%],

Local Elections in England and Northern Ireland

This May, 8,519 councillors and four mayors are to be elected across England and Northern Ireland - the largest number since 2019. There are two polling days: 4 May in England, and 18 May in Northern Ireland.

Learn more about the 2023 elections on our blog.

Here at Democracy Club we’ll be covering these elections via our websites WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk and WhereDoIVote.co.uk.

We answered almost two million requests for information from the public during the 2022 local elections - read more about our impact.

Lend a hand

Nominations close on 4 April in England and 24 April in Northern Ireland. On those dates, candidate lists will begin to be published on council websites, and we’re looking for volunteers to help us transfer this information into our database. Every year we’re blown away by the help we receive, and you can join in!

To get involved, simply create an account on our candidate database on or before 4 April. On that date, the front page will be updated with the information you’ll need - although if you're aware of candidates who have already declared they are standing, you’re welcome to start adding information before then. Please read our volunteer guide for more information on how the site works.

Are you a candidate, agent or party campaigner?

WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk offers a free profile to every candidate standing in a principal council election. Find out how to claim a profile for yourself or your candidates.

Don’t forget your ID!

These elections will be the first to be held after voter ID was introduced under the Elections Act. Learn more about these changes on the website of the Electoral Commission.

Democracy Club is non-partisan

Democracy Club is a non-partisan, not-for-profit Community Interest Company. This is a position which pervades everything we do, and has enabled us to achieve enormous success since our foundation in 2015. Read more on our blog.

Like what we do and want it to continue? Please consider making a donation to enable Democracy Club to reach even more people with trusted election information.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

The Ballotin - Democracy Club September Update

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:02:00 +0000

The Ballotin - Democracy Club September Update

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The Ballotin - Democracy Club September Update

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Dear [%full_name | Democracy Club Supporter%],

Introducing Democracy Club’s new CEO.

We’re delighted to announce that Democracy Club’s new CEO is Shabira Papain. Shabira is replacing Mevan Babkar, who has done a stellar job as Interim CEO since February. Although standing down as CEO, Mevan will remain on the board.

Shabira has a strong background in digital inclusion, recently as Head of Health Equalities & Digital Inclusion at NHSX, the digital arm of the NHS. She is also the founder of People Street, an agile community development start-up making inclusive design achievable.

Read more from Shabira on our blog.

This isn’t the only personnel change we’ve had over the last few months. Our developer, Michael, elections assistant Eleesha and board members Ian and Olly have also moved on - all four contributed an enormous amount to the organisation and will be sorely missed.

In their place we have a new developer, Bek Lewis, and James Key, who has joined the board.

Our 2022 election report

The overview of our 2022 election output is now available. The election went as smoothly as we would have liked: once again, our amazing community of volunteers came out in force, collecting both candidates and results far faster than we anticipated. Enormous thanks to everyone who took part.

2022 election highlights

1.9 million postcode searches during election week.
83% of survey respondents were more likely to vote after using the polling station finder.
21,300 candidates added to the database.
1,526 volunteers made 64,000 database edits over the election period.
All English and Welsh local election results recorded in record time.

Read the full report on our website.

The future

Over the next few months we’ll be pushing ahead with our new strategy, and seeking further funding for new and existing projects, in particular our work on elected representatives.

Rest assured, our election coverage will continue: May 2023 will see local elections across England and all councils in Northern Ireland. As usual, there will be plenty of opportunities for volunteers to take part.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

We’re hiring a CEO and a Python Developer

Tue, 31 May 2022 12:55:00 +0000

We’re hiring a CEO and a Python Developer

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We’re hiring a CEO and a Python Developer

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 31 May 2022.

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Dear [%full_name | Democracy Club supporter%],

Can you help us find our next python developer and CEO?

At Democracy Club we are currently recruiting for the following roles:

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

We are looking for a permanent CEO as passionate about serving voters and strengthening democracy as we are. Over the last 5 years we have laid firm foundations in elections and are looking for a permanent CEO to help grow our reach into services that support everyday democracy.

The CEO of Democracy Club wears many hats, and to be effective, must balance them all well. You will work alongside the board of directors, staff and volunteer community to serve democracy.

Deadline to apply is June 30th. Find out more.

Python Developer

We are looking for a python developer to help with our polling station finder, candidate websites, internal tooling and associated infrastructure. You will maintain existing code bases, manage data updates and work on new projects and features across all of our services.

We are a small team that works remotely by default. The initial focus will be on making improvements to our existing services before the elections in May 2023. Your work will be used by millions of voters in the UK.

Deadline to apply is June 30th. Find out more.

Please note we only accept applications via the links above.

Do you know someone who is perfect for this role?

We offer a £500 referral bonus. So if you refer someone who ends up getting the job, we give you £500. All the candidate needs to do is to tell us they heard it through you when they apply. So please share these jobs with someone who you think could do it well.

All the best,

The Democracy Club team

We served 1.9m voters this week!

Fri, 06 May 2022 14:24:00 +0000

We served 1.9m voters this week!

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We served 1.9m voters this week!

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 06 May 2022.

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Dear [%full_name | Democracy Club Supporter%],

1.9 million voters used Democracy Club this week!

This was the first year we had 100% coverage of all polling stations in the UK, and we even translated all our services into Welsh to make sure it reached the maximum number of people.

Yesterday alone we saw 1.2m voters use Democracy Club to find their polling station and their candidates. This brought our weekly total up to 1.9m!

None of that would have been possible without the help of the 1,526 volunteers who made 64,000 edits to get the data ready. Thank you, you're the best.

The fifth of May is election day!

Wed, 04 May 2022 15:02:00 +0000

The fifth of May is election day!

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The fifth of May is election day!

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 04 May 2022.

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Dear [%full_name | Democracy Club Supporter%],

Tomorrow, the fifth of May, is election day! 200 English, Scottish and Welsh councils, the Northern Ireland Assembly, South Yorkshire Mayor, and a referendum in Bristol.

Find out if you have an election, who’s on your ballot paper, and where your polling station is, at WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk!

Democracy Club made some brilliant progress this year. Not only has every single UK council provided us with data for our polling station finder, but we’ve also translated all our services into Welsh.

Some fun facts for you:

Polling Stations

There are 22,000 polling stations in use across the UK, spread across 18,000 unique polling places: 12,800 in England, 2,500 in Scotland, 2,100 in Wales, and 600 in Northern Ireland.

But what do these polling places look like? Along with all the usual suspects such as community centres (1,900), schools (3,300) and village halls (1,500) there are also some interesting outliers, including a dog training club and 7 hairdressers!

Candidates

Who is running? Our volunteers have collected the details of over 21,000 candidates.

In England, the Conservatives are contesting the most seats (4,247), in Wales it is Labour (859), and in Scotland, where the STV electoral system is used, it is the SNP (557).

Enormous thanks once again to the hundreds of volunteers who gave their time to collect this info.

Go vote!

The Democracy Club Team.

Democracy Club: We need your help this week

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:04:00 +0000

Democracy Club: We need your help this week

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Democracy Club: We need your help this week

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Dear [%full_name | Default Value%],

This week we need you to help us collect the details of candidates standing for 5,593 English and Welsh council seats (plus 7 English Mayors), to be elected on 5 May!

Millions of people use WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk to find the details of their candidates in the run up to the local elections.

All of this data relies on the work of volunteer contributors, like you, who collect candidate lists, photograph election leaflets, and spread the word.

This week - we need your help.

Candidate nomination papers for England and Wales are published later this afternoon. That means we need you to help us extract that information from PDFs so we can make it available to voters, charities, campaigners, journalists, researchers and many others.

Head over to the candidate database any time today to lend a hand entering candidate information. Simply create an account and use the ‘enter data’ button which will be displayed on the front page to start volunteering. The work is straightforward, as most of the heavy lifting is done by automation. Don't worry if you can't help out today, as the process usually carries on into the weekend.

Want to take part? Join our Slack to keep to-to-date with our progress.

Find out more about our data collection this year.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

P.S. - Don't forget to register to vote! Deadline is 14 April, or 18 April in Scotland. Don't know if you've got an election to vote in? Find out here.

The Ballotin: We need you this election season!

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 15:03:00 +0000

The Ballotin: We need you this election season!

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The Ballotin: We need you this election season!

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 28 Mar 2022.

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Dear [%first_name | Democracy Club Supporter%],

Election season is upon us!

Democracy Club’s mission is to give everyone vital voting information for this election.

Democracy Club runs the UK’s elections, polling stations and candidate database and API. This powers the Electoral Commission’s voter information page, and our own WhereDoIVote.co.uk and WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk, as well as a voting widget that will be embedded on many websites in the next few weeks.

In 2019 we served six million voters vital voting information, thanks to you.

We need you

All of our data relies on the work of volunteer contributors, who collect candidate lists, photograph election leaflets, and spread the word about our work.

This year we need you to join hundreds of others to help us crowdsource:

Candidate information

Candidate nominations close on different dates depending on the nation:

30 March (Scotland)
6 April (England and Wales)
8 April (Northern Ireland)

We’ll need your help after these dates! We’ll let you know when in a future email.

Election Leaflets

Everyone’s favourite database of pothole photos and dubious graphs is back! Received a leaflet in the post? Take a moment out from your trip to the recycling bin to snap a photo and upload it to our archive. Add a leaflet to the archive.

Election Hustings

Hustings allow voters to meet and quiz their candidates before polling day. We let you know when a husting is taking place in a specific area on WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk. Are you organising a hustings or know someone who is? Tell us about it and we’ll advertise it to thousands of voters for free! Report a hustings event.

Political Party Manifestos

Each election, many local political party branches publish their plans for the local area. We want to collect as many of these documents as possible to help voters make an informed choice. You can submit any manifesto you see, or if you are a member of a local party and want to get your vision to as many people as possible, you can submit them too. Submit a manifesto document.

Join us and 900 others on Slack

Slack is where we work day to day, and where all the volunteers will be talking - get involved.

What elections are we talking about?

On 5 May, voters will elect the Northern Ireland Assembly and 6,819 councillors across England, Scotland and Wales - in total, 200 GB local authorities will be holding elections. This includes every single councillor in Scotland, Wales, Greater London and Birmingham. It’s the largest set of elections until the next general election.

Read more about the 2022 elections on our blog, and find out if you will have something to vote for by entering your postcode at WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

The Ballotin: what Democracy Club did this summer

Mon, 04 Oct 2021 11:59:00 +0000

The Ballotin: what Democracy Club did this summer

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The Ballotin: what Democracy Club did this summer

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 04 Oct 2021.

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Dear [%first_name | Democracy Club supporter%],

Haven’t we been busy! In today’s newsletter, we’re seeking some new directors, reviewing what we did over the summer, and starting to think about the 2022 elections - it’s never too early to start planning!

We’re looking for some more directors

Interested in becoming more involved in what we do? Democracy Club is looking for some new Non-Executive Directors for our board. This unpaid role will involve helping set our governance and strategy for the coming years. We’re especially keen to bring in more members from across the UK and with more diverse experience, especially from the world of business.

Sounds like your sort of thing? Take a look at the description and find out how to apply on our blog.

What we did over the summer

Summer was a busy time at Democracy Club towers, with a range of new projects and features added to our existing work. Here’s a roundup of what we’ve been doing - you can find out more on our blog.

Our new project: Representatives

Something Democracy Club has been thinking about for a number of years is a project to list every single elected representative in the UK - councillors, mayors, assembly members, MPs, etc. We’re pleased to announce that we’re now most of the way towards an initial prototype, and are looking for organisations with which to partner on this. We think the proposed database has enormous potential as an analytic or transparency tool for charities and campaigners. Interested? Read more on our website, or get in touch.

Governance referendums

Since 2000, dozens of English councils have held referendums on how they are run. Until now, however, Democracy Club’s internal infrastructure was not set up to cover these events, meaning that we were unable to cover them with the polling station finder or other tools. We’re pleased to say that this has now been rectified, and that we’re currently serving information on the Croydon mayoral referendum, which is due to take place this Thursday, 7 October.

Looking to May 2022

The next UK elections might still feel like an awful long way away, but we’re already starting to think about possible projects. 5 May 2022 will see much anticipated elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as council elections in Scotland, Wales, and large swathes of England (including all London boroughs).

We’re keen to talk to any organisations or companies which might be interested in working with us on these elections. Whether you’re planning on running a campaign using our services or data, or would like to propose a more in-depth partnership, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you think we can help.

All the best,

The Democracy Club team

Democracy Club's 2021 Election Report

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 14:29:00 +0000

Democracy Club's 2021 Election Report

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Democracy Club's 2021 Election Report

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 02 Aug 2021.

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Dear [%first_name | Democracy Club supporter%],

We’re pleased to announce the publication of our report on the 2021 elections!

The 6 May polls saw us continue the rapid progress we made during 2019. We implemented some major new design improvements to WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk; achieved a record number of councils on our polling station finder; and processed some two million postcode searches in election week, with a correspondingly high level of user satisfaction.

It was a bit of a mixed bag in other areas however - but you'll have to read the full report to find out why!

Read the report on our website.

We’re hiring a new team member

Want to work for Democracy Club? We’re hiring a Chief Operating Officer. We need someone to take responsibility for projects and fundraising for Democracy Club’s immediate and long-term future. Sounds like your sort of thing?

You can find the full description on our website, or get in touch for more information. Applications close 20 August.

Can we ask you a question?

Got ten minutes to spare? We’re looking for feedback on our work, and ideas for future projects. We’ve put together a survey for anyone to answer.

Complete the survey.

Have a good summer!

The Democracy Club Team.

The Ballotin: polling day 2021!

Thu, 06 May 2021 05:02:00 +0000

The Ballotin: polling day 2021!

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The Ballotin: polling day 2021!

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Dear [%first_name | Democracy Club supporter%],

It's election day! Polling stations are open 7am-10pm. There are approximately 35,500 polling stations open across GB today, from church halls to caravans and everything in between.

Not sure where to go? Try our polling station finder. Not sure who to vote for? Try our candidate look-up.

This year will be a little different from previous elections. There might be a longer queue at the polling station, and there will be social distancing and hygiene measures in place. Electoral administrators have worked extremely hard to ensure that everyone can vote the way they wish. Read more about this on the website of the Electoral Commission.

If you have a postal vote but have not yet posted it, don't fret: you can hand it in at any polling station in your council area.

One last thing: we're excited to announce the return of Election Leaflets. If you've any leaflets waiting to go in the the recycling (though we're sure you have studied them carefully), please take a moment to photograph and upload them for posterity. It's been an extraordinary election after an extraordinary year, and we want to make sure we've recorded as much of it as possible.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

The Ballotin

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:06:00 +0000

The Ballotin

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The Ballotin

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 29 Apr 2021.

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Dear [%first_name | Democracy Club supporter%]

Election day is next Thursday. Voters in England, Scotland and Wales will go to the polls in an extremely complex set of elections. Most will have at least two ballot papers; some may have as many as five or six

Our candidate finder at WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk covers all GB elections above parish level.

Our polling station finder at WhereDoIVote.co.uk covers the vast majority of GB council areas, including all areas in Wales, Scotland and London.

The election: candidates

Enormous thanks to all those who took part in our crowdsourcing efforts at the start of the month. Our database of English local election candidates was completed in record time - we had a full list by Tuesday 13th.

There are a total of 21,369 candidacies across all GB elections on 6 May.

We’ve produced a briefing on the English local election candidates.

Our data has recently been cited by The Guardian.

Continued work on WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk

We’re seeing a lot of interest in the upcoming elections - WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk is currently receiving tens of thousands of visitors a day. We’ve continued to work on improving the site, and have just deployed a change to ballot pages which will make the website easier to use and understand.

Let us know what you think by using the feedback forms after you have searched your postcode on WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk

The election: polling stations

We’re delighted to announce that, for the first time ever, Democracy Club’s polling station finder covers all council areas in Scotland (4764 stations), Wales (2329 stations) and Greater London (3888 stations).

Over the last three months, we have partnered with The Electoral Commission, London Elects, and local government electoral services teams to collect polling station data for WhereDoIVote.co.uk.The result has been our best-ever coverage on the finder. It now covers 278 of 371 GB council areas, and we’re expecting to crack 300 by the end of this week.

See the full list of councils covered by the finder here.

Try the finder for yourself at WhereDoIVote.co.uk.

Want your website to offer the same information? Our finder can be embedded into any website for free.

Spread the word and make a plan to vote!

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

The Ballotin - Happy SoPN Day!

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 15:11:00 +0000

The Ballotin - Happy SoPN Day!

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The Ballotin - Happy SoPN Day!

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Dear [%first_name | democracy enthusiast%],

Nominations have now closed for the 6 May elections in England and Wales, and councils will be publishing Statements of Persons Nominated ('SoPNs') on their websites over the next two days.

We're expecting nominations for the following:

Senedd Cymru
English Mayors (excl. London)
Police and Crime Commissioners
Councillors

Our task is to collect these documents and enter the details into our crowd sourcing site. Want to get involved? You can find information on what needs attention on the front page of the Candidates database, as well as a progress tracker. If you haven't done so already, create an account and get stuck in!

You can join us this evening in our Slack, or have a walk around our virtual SoPN party on Gather via this link.

We completed London Assembly and Scotland Parliament when they published last week - you can see summaries of the candidates standing using these links:

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team

The Ballotin - Democracy Club

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 07:30:00 +0000

The Ballotin - Democracy Club

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The Ballotin - Democracy Club

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Dear [%first_name | Democracy Club Volunteer%],

Democracy Club’s mission is to make this year’s elections more accessible for everyone. To achieve this, we need your help.

Democracy Club runs the UK’s election candidate database. This powers websites that will be seen by hundreds of thousands of voters in the run up to May’s elections, including The Electoral Commission’s voter information page, and our own WhereDoIVote.co.uk and WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk.

Nominations for Scottish Parliament and London Assembly are published tomorrow afternoon (1 April). Nominations for all other elections are published the following week.

Find out how you can help.

This year we are collecting:

Election Hustings This year’s elections will see many virtual hustings taking place which hopefully will mean many more people can take part! We need your help finding these hustings and how people can access them.
Local political parties. Information on regional branches of the major parties, all in one place! With candidates avoiding excessive door-to-door canvassing and leafleting this year, online resources are all the more important.
Candidate information. Our aim is to provide as many of our candidate profiles as possible with photos, election statements, and links to social media pages. Create an account on our Candidates Website to start making edits to May 2021 Candidates!

Find the links to our crowdsourced databases on our Quests page.

Please share these crowdsourcing tasks with anyone you think might be interested. The wider our network, the more coverage we get across the UK!

What else have we been up to?

We’ve had a busy time of it since January. Here’s a roundup of some recent articles and blog posts.

Research

Democracy Club’s WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk was featured as a case study in a report published by the European Citizen Action Service.

News and views

Kate had an article published in Nation.Cymru on the need for voter tools for the Senedd election.

Sym wrote a blog post about M&Ms, glam rock, and data management.

Polling Stations

We've been steadily collecting polling station data from councils and adding it to WhereDoIVote.co.uk. We're updating the finder each Thursday, and keeping track in this sheet.

Remember, our finder can be added as a widget to any site for free. We also offer a combined 'elections widget', which offers elections, candidates and stations.

Who Can I Vote For?

Our new developers have hit the ground running with a host of updates and improvements to WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk. This includes the exciting (well, we’re excited) addition of some referendums and parish councils to our website.

Questions or comments? Get in touch by replying to this email!

Kind Regards,

The Democracy Club Team

The Ballotin

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 15:11:00 +0000

The Ballotin

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The Ballotin

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 30 Apr 2020.

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Hello,

We hope you’re keeping well.

Following the cancellation of the May local elections (which were due to happen this coming Thursday), Democracy Club is heading for a pause of some months before we start preparing for the elections in 2021.

Our team is also changing, with Joe and Chris moving on to pastures new. You can read more about these developments in our blog of 2 April.

In the meantime, we’ve been working on some research into how our services have been used over the last year. Last week we published a piece on international users of our services, and in a couple of weeks we hope to produce some analysis on our postcode search data.

General Election Report

Most importantly, we’re pleased to announce that we have just published our report into the 2019 general election.

The December election completed our busiest ever year; in terms of data collected, user numbers, and partnerships, it was by far and away our most successful election. During the election campaign, Democracy Club:

Processed four million postcode searches.
Employed six extra (temporary) members of staff.
Achieved 73% polling station finder coverage for population of England/Wales/Scotland.
Crowdsourced all parliamentary candidates within 24 hours of close of nominations.
Achieved some major new data partnerships, notably The Guardian, The Times and Sky News.
Saw links to our websites shared online by major organisations of state, including the Electoral Commission and UK Parliament.
Successfully developed and deployed a combined polling stations and candidates widget in time for the general election. Added Welsh language capability to both widgets.
Gained over 1,300 new contributors to our candidates database.

Get the full details in our (illustrated!) report. Many, many thanks to everyone who lent a hand to help us during the election, and throughout 2019. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Looking Forward

Although things will be quieter at Democracy Club for a bit, we’re not going anywhere. The 2021 elections will be some of the largest ever held in the UK, and we are already starting to think about how we’re going to cover them. Look out for our call to action later in the year.

In the meantime, please feel free to drop into our friendly Slack group and say hello anytime!

Best wishes, stay safe,

Democracy Club

Election debrief

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 12:13:00 +0000

Election debrief

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Election debrief

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 03 Jan 2020.

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Hello,

Happy new year!

You may recall that there was a general election last year.

On Monday evening, there’s a debrief event in London for anyone who worked on tech projects at the election. Please sign up here.

Also, the Election Tech Handbook has also been updated with some links to election results and analysis. Please add other relevant links: it’s important to create an archive for next time!

As for Democracy Club, we’re already gearing up for the mayoral, devolved, police & crime commissioner and local elections in May.

More soon, or join in via our Slack!

Joe

P.s. New year’s donations very welcome :)

Tonight

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 18:26:00 +0000

Tonight

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Tonight

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Hello,

Happy election day! Obviously, go vote if you haven’t already. Then read this email...

📈 So far today:

We crashed through one million uses of WhereDoIVote.co.uk fairly early on in the day. The team has been working hard since 6am to deal with the on-the-day changes and to make corrections as swiftly as possible.

The candidate data you helped crowdsource is everywhere, powering tweets, email campaigns, candidate lookup widgets and we’ve passed 500,000 uses on WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk over the last few weeks too.

⏱ Looking back over the last six weeks:

You crowdsourced the name and party affiliation of over 3,000 candidates in about 19 hours, before adding photos, emails, social media details for the vast majority of them.

You’ve helped list hundreds of hustings events and photographed hundreds of election leaflets.

🙏 Thank you!

Everyone who entered data on #SoPNDay and every day since then, everyone who shared stuff on social media, distributed flyers and got in touch with candidates to get more information from them… Thanks for helping our democracy work better!

💷 More of this kind of thing:

If you’d like to support Democracy Club with a monthly donation, please use this handy link.

📊 Enjoy the results..

From 11.30pm-ish, we’ll be capturing results data here. Look out for official tweets or website updates from local authorities for the full counts.

Until next time (...)

Joe, Sym, Chris, Peter, Ella, Terry, Michelle, Will, Alex and all

Election reminder

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 10:47:00 +0000

Election reminder

democracy club Mailing lists

Election reminder

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 11 Dec 2019.

If you would like to receive these emails in future, please subscribe.

Hello,

You signed up for election reminders. Here’s an important one:

It’s a general election tomorrow: Thursday 12 December. Don’t miss out.

Think ahead:

What time do you plan to vote? (Polls open at 7am and close at 10pm)
How will you get to your polling station?
Can you remind someone else to vote too?

If you’re not sure where to vote, use WhereDoIVote.co.uk.

Happy voting,

from everyone at Democracy Club

P.S. You might want an umbrella... ☔️

Election reminder

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 15:06:00 +0000

Election reminder

democracy club Mailing lists

Election reminder

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 05 Dec 2019.

If you would like to receive these emails in future, please subscribe.

Hello,

This is an election reminder!

There will be a parliamentary election next Thursday — 12 December.

You are more likely to vote if you plan ahead. So when exactly will you go vote? Pop it in your diary!

You can learn about your candidates via WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk. It includes manifestos, local news coverage and event details, where possible.

We’ll send another reminder next Wednesday, just in case...

Best wishes,

Democracy Club

P.S. You can support Democracy Club with a donation via Paypal.

#DemocracyDay

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:40:00 +0000

#DemocracyDay

democracy club Mailing lists

#DemocracyDay

This is an HTML version of an email we sent on 05 Dec 2019.

If you would like to receive these emails in future, please subscribe.

Hello,

Happy #DemocracyDay!

This is the day in the election campaign when we try to get the media and campaigns to pay attention to the issue of a better democracy.

There’s a lot going on over on twitter via the #DemocracyDay hashtag.

We would love your help in pushing democracy onto the election agenda!

Message your candidates (contact details here) to ask them to pledge to support better information on democratic processes. It’s time that open data on the basics of elections, candidates, polling locations and results was produced by the state.
Go along to a hustings in your area (they'll be listed here) to ask your candidates what they will do to support a healthy democracy.

Democracy Club is pretty cool, but relying on a tiny non-profit to provide vital digital infrastructure for democracy is not ideal. It’s time the UK invested in bringing democracy up to speed for the digital age. Once the basic open data is done, then Democracy Club can move on to the next project to make democracy better!

Let us know how you get on — we'll be following this up with the next parliament!

With thanks,

Joe and the team