The Ballotin #6 — from Democracy Club 🗳

Dear friends,

Don’t let the winter deceive you: there are only two months to go before the May local polls!

There are over 4,000 councillor posts up for grabs, so there will be well over 10,000 candidates standing. We need your help to find them — more below.

See you in spring!

Joe

🗺 Help us find local candidates for May! 🗺

We’re six weeks away from the official Statements of Nominated Persons being published, but we’re sure most parties have chosen their candidates — and independents will be out there too. If you see any, please make sure they’re in the database!

🏛 How can we open up council decision-making? 🏛

We ran a workshop at NotWestminster, the local democracy event, asking how we can help everyone understand council decision-making. Turns out it’s tricky! We learned a lot along the way, some of which you’ll find in our live-blogging.

📝 And how else can we help voters? 📝

Changes to voter registration, better information — what else would improve participation rates at elections? We’ve got an open Google Doc to list ideas to share with anyone who’ll listen — please contribute!

🕵 Civic detectives needed! 🕵

Matt and Louisa, friends of Democracy Club, are asking how to make public meetings better! You can learn about their project here — or help build the evidence base by attending a public meeting and then completing this survey.