The use of the misleading ‘No Overall Control’ designation means some voters still don’t know who won their local election

Elections took place in 172 English and Northern Irish local authorities last week, alongside the European Parliament election. For most councils there was a decisive result, with a single majority party emerging. But there were dozens of councils where no party won a majority, and were therefore designated as ‘No Overall Control’. Democratic Audit’s Richard Berry believes both the media and councils fail to provide adequate information to voters about the results of these elections. In this post he sets out how practices can be improved to give voters a clearer picture of what happened in their area.