10APR

Candidate database hits 99.97% ahead of vote

1 min read

18:20UTC

Democracy Club's candidate database reached near-total coverage three weeks before polling day, completing the data infrastructure for the 7 May elections.

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Key takeaway

Democracy Club completed candidate data for 3,073 of 3,074 areas, locking in the 7 May picture.

Democracy Club entered candidates for 3,073 of 3,074 areas (99.97%), up from 86% on 10 April . The volunteer-driven ingestion closed the remaining 14 percentage points in three days following the completion of English and Welsh Statement of Persons Nominated publication.

The completed database locks in the candidate picture for the 7 May elections. Cross-referencing against Reform UK's spending records and candidate attrition patterns across nations is now viable for the first time. The single missing area is a rounding artefact, not a data gap.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Democracy Club is a small charity that gathers information about election candidates across the UK and makes it available as open data. Before Statements of Persons Nominated (the official lists of candidates) are published by returning officers, the candidate database contains almost nothing. By 13 April 2026, Democracy Club had information on candidates in 3,073 of the 3,074 areas holding elections on 7 May. This near-total coverage matters because it is the primary source for voter information tools: websites and apps that tell you who is standing in your area rely on this database. The jump from 86% on 10 April to 99.97% on 13 April happened as the official candidate nominations were published across England and Wales.

What could happen next?

Opportunity
The completed candidate database enables cross-party analysis of candidate demographics, prior criminal convictions, and affiliation patterns that Reform UK's cold-calling recruitment story makes directly relevant.

Sources:Democracy Club

Mentions:Democracy Club →Wales →Reform UK →

First Reported In

Update #3 · Both flanks fracture

Democracy Club· 13 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Candidate Database Jumps From 2.6% to 86% in Three Days

Democracy Club's 86% coverage on 10 April continued to near-total completion by 13 April, finalising the candidate picture.

Occurred 10 Apr 2026

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This Event

Candidate database hits 99.97% ahead of vote

Complete candidate data across 3,073 of 3,074 areas enables cross-referencing of party slates, spending records and attrition patterns ahead of polling day.

Different Perspectives

Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton

Davidson's office printed a 90cm ballot paper for the record 34-candidate field, with nothing in electoral law capping candidate numbers or the £500 deposit each pays. He expects the paper's size to raise printing costs and slow the count into the early hours, a strain that follows from the major parties' boycott, not from turnout.

Scottish Labour members

Members now choose between Michael Marra and Joe Fagan after Monica Lennon fell one MP nomination short of the three-MP, three-MSP threshold, a bar set by MPs and union officials rather than the wider membership. Whoever wins takes office having faced only one rival on the members' ballot.

Labour Party

Labour gained Penistone East from Reform on 20 August but lost Harraby South to Reform the same night, a wash that undercuts any claim of momentum. The party can point to beating Reform in a genuinely fought contest, but not to a pattern running only in its favour.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats took two of Reform's May wards, Almondbury on 13 August and St Neots Eynesbury on 20 August, the latter on a 29.8-point rise in their own vote share. Both results let the party claim it is the beneficiary when voters turn against Reform, not Labour or the Conservatives.

Reform UK

Reform UK can point to winning Clacton unopposed by the other major parties and to taking Harraby South from Labour, a ward it had never previously contested. That gives the party two results to cite even as three previously held wards changed hands elsewhere in August.

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd ruled out a Stormont walkout on 11 August despite calling the DUP increasingly difficult to work with, closing a question Conor Murphy had left open a fortnight earlier. Only Sinn Féin or the DUP can collapse the joint First Minister office, so the denial gives up the party's own leverage in budget talks.