The Tally Room

Simon blogs regularly at Polswatch - Ben Sweden joined the European Union in 1995, two years after its formal establishment with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Sweden votes as a single constituency using a modified ‘Sainte-Laguë method of the highest average’ voting system. This...

Portugal has been a member of the European Union since 1987, when they first elected a delegation of MEPs. Portugal votes as a single constituency, with seats being distributed by party lists. They will elect 22 MEPs in 2009, after electing 24-25 at each...

There has been a lot of commentary on the Greens' victory in last weekend's Fremantle by-election result. First of all, it is clearly a significant result for the Greens. It is the first time the Greens have come first on primary votes in a...

Following the recent scandal in the UK, some senior figures in the Labour government have used the opportunity to push ahead with major democratic reforms: An intense cabinet-level debate is under way on the format of this initiative, its timescale and the range...

As a follow-up to yesterday's profile of the UK race for the European Parliament, I thought I would feature this campaign website for the Green Party's candidate for North-West England, Peter Cranie. The Greens, in addition to their seats in London and South East England,...

The United Kingdom will vote for its Members of the European Parliament on Thursday 4th June, the  same day as elections for England's 27 County Councils and a number of other local government bodies. While the UK elected 78 MEPs in 2004, this will fall...

This is the first in a series of profiles of each EU member state in the leadup to the European Parliament elections in early June. Ireland will elect it's Members of the European Parliament on Friday 5th June. The same day will see two by-elections...

Amongst everything else, I'm still working on my Google Earth map of House of Commons constituencies. I recently finished work on the seats in the South West region and uploaded the latest version to my maps page. The latest version of the map covers...

The result in the daylight savings referendum was clearcut, with the 'no' case winning, with a 55.49% 'no' vote. I've put together a few maps showing the distribution of the vote. Every single electorate outside Perth gave a solid majority to the 'no' case....

8:45pm - There are currently 23 Greens MPs around the country. There were 24 Greens MPs from Ronan Lee's defection to the Greens in late 2008 to his defeat in March 2009. There are three Greens waiting to take office in the WA Legislative...