13APR

Candidate database hits 99.97% ahead of vote

1 min read

16:52UTC

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

Local Government Association

New chair Eamonn O'Brien broke the LGA's neutrality on reorganisation for the first time since December 2024, telling the incoming prime minister the 'unprecedented scale' of disaggregation risks statutory services and asking him to adjust the LGR timetable, aligning the sector's institutional voice with the judicial review claims Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk have already filed.

Reform UK

Reform's £12m Harborne windfall from 2025 predates the 25 March retrospective crypto-donation ban, so the new law does not reach it; a live police probe into £500,000 of Cottrell donations continues, while the standards inquiry into Harborne's undeclared £5m gift is frozen since Farage vacated Clacton on 8 July.

Incoming Burnham government

Burnham secured 349 of the backing the NEC's 81-MP threshold required by 13 July, becoming Labour leader on 17 July and prime minister on 20 July without a members' ballot. He now inherits the LGR timetable the LGA wants him to adjust and a finance bill his own backbencher, Liam Byrne, is trying to harden further via amendment NC34.

Rupert Lowe / Restore Britain

Lowe called Farage's Clacton contest a 'Reform-sponsored media circus' and kept Restore Britain out of it, pledging instead to stand in the second by-election he expects the Harborne inquiry to force later this year. The boycott doubles as a signal that Restore Britain, not Reform, will contest the 'real' vote.

Kemi Badenoch / Conservative Party

Badenoch dismissed Farage's Clacton contest as a 'fake by-election' and joined the boycott, but reserved the right to fight a genuine second contest if Greenberg's inquiry forces one. The Conservatives are betting their real fight comes in autumn, not July.

Rhun ap Iorwerth / Plaid Cymru

Ap Iorwerth defended a £145m NHS allocation at First Minister's Questions on 1 July, blaming a graduate-nurse shortfall on 2022 training decisions taken before his Plaid-led government took office in May. Answering for choices his government did not make gives his new administration its first real accountability test.