Welcome to the September 2026 edition of Democracy Club’s regular newsletter. All past emails are accessible in an online archive.

A big month for election news! On 7 September the government announced a pause in local government reorganisation. This means that elections to new councils will not now go ahead in 2027, and instead district and unitary council elections will continue as usual. Our back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that this cancels elections to approximately 55 new councils, and replaces them with elections to 150 district and unitary councils.

Confused? You’re not alone. The English electoral calendar in particular is anything but straightforward. Our latest blog offers a summary of the UK electoral timetable, and explains why these changes could make 2027 the largest set of local elections this century.

On 29 September the Prime Minister confirmed the setting up of a Commission on Electoral Reform, to report before the next general election. What this will look like remains to be seen, although the Byline Times reports that Burnham himself ‘believes the constituency link is critical’.

On top of all this, the Representation of the People Bill is now before the Lords, with a large number of amendments proposed. These include an interesting attempt to amend Clause 50 and allow the Electoral Commission to collect and publish results and turnout data, similar to the changes advocated in our written evidence to the Bill committee earlier in the year. We’ll be watching this one closely!

Reports on May 2026

The Electoral Commission has published its reports on the 2026 English council, Welsh Senedd and Scottish Parliament elections. Overall it found the elections to be well-run and turnout increasing in England and Wales. However the reports also highlight some concerning issues, especially around candidate harassment (which in England has increased 16% in four years), and electoral administrator capacity.

The reports include extensive polling on voter attitudes from YouGov. In our own area of election information, 65% of voters in England, 76% in Scotland and 73% Wales said that they found it easy to get information about the parties and candidates - encouraging numbers, but still suggesting that we have a way to go. We’re delighted to note that half a dozen respondents mentioned that they used WhoCanIVoteFor to get their information!

Another point of interest is that printed leaflets remain by far the most popular form of campaigning: over 90% of English council candidates said they issued election leaflets, while only 68% campaigned on social media, with similar figures for Scotland and Wales.This is why our online database of election leaflets is so crucial - without it, we’d only be capturing a minority of the material issued during elections. If you’ve received some leaflets recently, please take a moment to upload images.

Elections to watch

Another month, another parliamentary by-election. Voters in Holborn and St. Pancras go to the polls on 8 October, to fill a seat vacated by Kier Starmer. 15 candidates are standing. You can see all upcoming elections on the front page of WhoCanIVoteFor.