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

Election results

The 2026 local and devolved elections have been and gone. Enormous thanks to everyone who helped enter the votes cast for each candidate in the English local elections (want to play with the data? You can download a csv file from our database). This data has already been used by a variety of journalists and researchers, as highlighted below.

We processed more postcode searches during the 2026 local and devolved elections than in any previous poll except the 2024 general election - well over 10 million. This success was partially a reflection of increased public interest, with turnout rising in England and Wales (although falling off slightly in Scotland). See the full stats on our blog.

We’re also delighted to say that our hard work has resulted in happy users. Our recent feedback report finds excellent user satisfaction at 88% on WhereDoIVote and 77% on WhoCanIVoteFor. Excitingly, almost half of WDIV users and a third of WCIVF users reported that they were more likely to vote because of our services! Read the report now.

News and analysis

Democracy Club’s free and open data has been used extensively by journalists, campaigners and researchers this year. Candidate gender was once again in the spotlight, with analyses of the number of women standing published in the Guardian and the results later analysed by Liam McLoughlin.

Meanwhile our election leaflets database was extensively used by Full Fact in their election coverage. Our results data has also powered a similar output from Reform Political Advertising.

Other uses of our election results database include an analysis of Multi-Level Regression and Post-Stratification (MRP) models, and a really nice study which maps deprivation and community need onto the results.

Have you used our data or spotted a recent study not mentioned above? Please get in touch and let us know about it!

The Democracy Network is looking for a leader

Want to work with us? The Democracy Network, of which we are a joint host, is looking for an entrepreneurial leader to relaunch and build its next phase. More information can be found in the job description. The application deadline is 14 June.

Supplementary vote returns

Some legal news, as the legislation to bring back the supplementary vote for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales has been laid before parliament, and will come into effect on 19 June. The supplementary vote may be in use soon if Andy Burnham, who is currently Mayor of Greater Manchester, wins the Makerfield parliamentary by-election on 18 June. Burnham will have to resign as mayor if he wins.

Elections to watch

18 June is a very busy day for elections: alongside Makerfield, there are also two parliamentary by-elections in Scotland, following the election of two SNP MPs to the Scottish Parliament. There are also 15 council polls on this day: 11 by-elections, and four rescheduled elections from 7 May, following candidate deaths in those wards.

The elections continue on 25 June when a whopping 23 council elections are due to take place. Many of these have been sparked in Wales by councillors resigning after being elected to the Senedd.

You can view a list of all upcoming elections on the front page of WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk.

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team