Events
‘Protecting Democracy’ report launch
Over the past three months the team of Dr John Ault, Dr Leah Phillips and Harry Busz have been consulting UK and international election bodies, and practitioners, to see what can be done to protect elections in the UK and ensure that they can proceed safely in 2021.The new planned date for the English local elections, of May 6th 2021, will also coincide with elections for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments. All of Great Britain will be going to the polls in 2021.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/protecting-democracy-how-to-run-elections-in-the-uk-during-the-pandemic-tickets-112286427728Online Symposium on Electoral Integrity
As you can imagine we continue to work from our respective homes and have decided to hold an online all-day conference on 1st September 2020. The symposium will draw on academic and practitioner work and experience in a series of presentations which will be conducted by Zoom. These sessions will be approximately an hour in each case with some being guest speakers and others with presented papers.
Register to attend below. A small fee of £20 will be requested from all attendees, partly to cover the technological requirements of the conference and also the publication of a post-conference book, which we intend to compile and publish by the Spring of 2021.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/democracy-volunteers-online-symposium-on-electoral-integrity-tickets-107536777396One guest speaker will be Dr Alistair Clark of Newcastle University who has research interests including political parties, party organisation, electoral integrity and administration. Dr Clark has given expert evidence to the Scottish parliament, House of Commons and House of Lords and regularly engages with practitioners and policymakers.
We hope it will be an interesting and engaging event which will spread some new ideas and bring together those interested in election observation and electoral integrity.
Vacancies
United Kingdom Local Elections 2021 (Moved from 2020) and Scottish and Welsh Parliamentary Elections
If you are interested in becoming an observer for the forthcoming UK local elections do send us an email with your CV for us to consider. We are presently recruiting for observers across England for the elections on 6th May 2021. We are also looking for observers for the 2021 Scottish parliamentary and National Assembly for Wales elections on the same day.
Observers do not need to be UK nationals but should be over 18 and able to demonstrate they are not biased (such as being a member of a UK political party). Core skills for the role are:
- An eye for detail
- Capacity to be impartial – you should not be a political party member
- Willing and enthusiastic to volunteer for long hours
Independent election observation is an essential part of ensuring that democracy functions and we welcome applications from all sectors of society. No specific qualifications are required as we do wish to reflect the society in which we function. The election is likely to be highly contested and we are calling for observers to observe elections in all the regions and nations of the UK.
If you are interested in becoming an observer for the local elections please email info@democracyvolunteers.org and we will arrange for one of the team to get in touch with you as soon as possible.
APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN UNTIL 31/12/20
FULL ONLINE TRAINING WILL BE PROVIDED