Electoral Reform
Voting systems and democratic representation
Based on 2 parliamentary votes
Related Constitution and Democracy Issues
How Parties Voted on Electoral Reform
Government alignment shows how often each party voted with the government's stated position. Issue-aligned direction shows agreement with the AI-identified supportive stance.
Recent Votes
| Vote | Result | Date |
|---|---|---|
A vote on a 'reasoned amendment' to block the Representation of the People Bill from proceeding to its next stage. The Bill, introduced by the Labour government, includes measures such as extending voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds — a Labour manifesto commitment. A reasoned amendment is an opposition attempt to reject the Bill at Second Reading by citing objections to its principles. Yes = Support blocking the Representation of the People Bill, opposing measures such as votes at 16 and other electoral reforms proposed by the Labour government · No = Support allowing the Bill to proceed, backing Labour's electoral reforms including extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds Govt: No | 107-409 | 2 Mar 2026 |
A vote on whether to allow a Bill to be introduced that would replace the current first-past-the-post voting system with proportional representation (specifically single transferable vote) for UK parliamentary and English local government elections. The Bill was proposed by Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney, arguing the current system produces large parliamentary majorities on small vote shares. Yes = Support introducing proportional representation (single transferable vote) for parliamentary and local government elections, believing it produces fairer outcomes where seats better reflect votes cast · No = Oppose changing the voting system, preferring to retain first-past-the-post for its simplicity and the direct constituency link it provides between voters and their elected MP Govt: No | 140-134 | 3 Dec 2024 |
How is this calculated?
Government alignment (primary bar) shows how often a party's MPs voted with the government's stated position on this issue. This is the most comparable metric across parties, as it measures the same reference point for everyone.
Issue-aligned direction (secondary bar) shows how often MPs voted in the direction tagged as supportive of this issue by AI analysis. For example, if a vote is tagged “pro-environment”, a Yes vote counts as aligned. This can be misleading when the tagged direction happens to align with opposition amendments rather than government bills.
Why these metrics may differ: Opposition parties often vote against government bills for strategic or procedural reasons, even when they broadly support the policy area. The government alignment metric makes this clearer by showing the actual voting pattern against a consistent reference.
Source: Commons division data from the UK Parliament Votes API. Alignment direction determined by AI analysis of vote stance tags. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.