From left to right: Professor Michael Thrasher, Dr Hannah Bunting and Professor Colin Rallings, Co-directors of The Elections Centre

About

The Elections Centre was founded by Professors Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings in 1985. Now at the University of Exeter, we hold the most comprehensive database of local election results in the world, spanning 125 years and recording votes for over 1.4 million candidates. We have one of the most comprehensive collections of hard-copy results and are custodians of the library of FWS Craig who pioneered the publication of general election results in the UK.

We have used our data and expertise to provide analysis on every election since the 1970s. We work with a variety of partners, including the House of Commons Library and the Electoral Commission, as well as media organisations such as Sky News, BBC, PA media and ITV News. Digital copies of the Local Elections Handbook, an annual publication of results since 1985, can be found on our website.

Who we are

From left to right, Professor Michael Thrasher, Dr Hannah Bunting and Professor Colin Rallings, Co-directors of The Elections Centre.

In 2007 Rallings and Thrasher were given the Political Studies Association Communication Award and in 2018 they were recognised with the Royal Television Society Award for their work on the exit poll. For The Sunday Times, they have estimated the national equivalent vote share at each round of local elections over the past five decades.  Because of their detailed knowledge of ward-level voting, Rallings and Thrasher have led the team compiling constituency-level vote estimates for periodic boundary reviews since the 1990s, work commissioned by a consortium comprising BBC, ITV News, Sky News and PA Media.

We are available for consultancy projects and collaborations, and you can purchase our data for your own analysis. Get in touch now to start a conversation about how The Elections Centre can help inform, engage and inspire you.

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