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Sym Roe

@symroe

Turning Python and UK elections into Democracy Club, from Stroud https://democracyclub.org.uk/

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01.09.2024
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Latest posts by Sym Roe @symroe

Hmmmm

04.03.2026 21:18 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Did they rename it? I think that's just an advert?

04.03.2026 20:10 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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What's up for election in 2026? Everywhere in Scotland and Wales, along with large areas of England, will be going to the polls on 7 May.

πŸ—³οΈ πŸ“† The Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru and 136 English councils (5,013 councillors and six mayors) are holding elections on 7 May.

πŸ‘‡ Get all the details from our latest blog. πŸ‘‡
democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/03...

03.03.2026 17:09 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Representation of the People Bill-
Gov commits to repeal entirely the power to set a Strategy & Policy Statement for the Electoral Commission.

02.03.2026 18:12 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I guess it's still early days, pleany of time to make hay

02.03.2026 19:26 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Yes, I thought that was a fairly major announcement, buried in an odd way

02.03.2026 19:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Lovely shoutout to our election leaflets database from Prof. Rob! You can upload leaflets yourself at: electionleaflets.org

16.02.2026 09:56 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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The elections bill is excellent for data on elections The elections bill has the possibility to transform the way that election data works in the UK.

Where I talk about the good things in The Elections Bill for @democracyclub.org.uk, and some areas I think need work in order to de-risk the legislation being too ridged

democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/02...

12.02.2026 16:46 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Asking for a friend - amazing social CIC doing good things in nature.

Looking for a South West (ideal) based fractional CTO who can also get their hands a bit dirty, and help a volunteer model of developing their platform

They have a backend dev, and hiring a front end.

Any ideas/connections?

29.09.2025 11:03 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 0

Yeah, I think that's the same CGR process as we talk about here. Can be changing names and or boundaries. In theory this is tracked by OS, but they do miss some

08.08.2025 09:31 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

"Data" is seen too much as "publishing a book" rather than "running a service". Thinking it's something that can go in a "library" shows how deep this thinking goes.

08.08.2025 09:28 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

We're really lucky in this country that gerrymandering is basically not a thing

08.08.2025 09:03 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Very doubtful: they are minor enough changes. You're right that it's hard to prove, but I would bet that the changes have never altered the outcome of a local election.

08.08.2025 09:02 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Community Governance Reviews Community Governance Reviews keep parish and community councils in line. But they are hard to keep track of.

Did you know that councils can change their own ward boundaries? And sometimes, no one really notices?

democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/08...

New post from @democracyclub.org.uk talks about how this is tricky for us to track, and what we think could improve the process

08.08.2025 08:16 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2

Three masts and one foremast

07.08.2025 16:22 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Soap opera - Wikipedia

🀯

"The term soap opera originated from radio dramas' original sponsorship by soap manufacturers.

The term was preceded by horse opera, a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns."

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_op...

06.08.2025 07:34 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Ariel Kalma - Open Like A Flute View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2015 Vinyl release of "Open Like A Flute" on Discogs.

www.discogs.com/release/6617... has been my focus music of late

03.08.2025 19:46 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Where I have some thoughts on digital improvements that can follow from The Elections Strategy. I think the "digital notices" thing could be a really interesting pattern in legislation

31.07.2025 14:42 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
a group of people eating ice-cream in front of the tower in Mechelen, Belgium

a group of people eating ice-cream in front of the tower in Mechelen, Belgium

Finally got my film developed - wish I could time travel back to eating icecream in mechelen with the amazing #tictec crew!

@democracyclub.org.uk @symroe.bsky.social @myfanwytristram.bsky.social @zarino.co.uk @dracos.co.uk
@mysociety.org @societyworks.org

31.07.2025 12:36 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Thoughts on the Elections Strategy Earlier this month the government published its '*Strategy for modern and secure elections*'. We outline some of our ideas for digital implementation of this strategy.

Some great practical extensions of the election strategy by the election data experts at Democracy Club.

Includes a good write-up of @symroe.bsky.social's "hang on, can we just define 'giving notice'" argument. democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/07...

31.07.2025 10:16 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
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Parish councils and political parties: some initial findings A dive into the politics of England's first tier of local government.

New blog!

Political parties won 12.9% of English town and parish council seats in 2024/2025. But party involvement at this level is controversial. We take a look at what the data can tell us about partisanship in England's first tier of local government.

democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/07...

29.07.2025 15:25 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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DocSend - Simple, intelligent, modern content sending DocSend helps you communicate more effectively by telling you what happens to content after you send them and letting you keep control in real time.

My friend Hatty has written a detailed plan for the implementation of votes at 16: docsend.com/view/9nnhamt...

18.07.2025 06:17 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Effective end to the open register (good! It's a weird legacy of when voting rights were restricted and was open so you could challenge. Now just a weird privacy thing that has a lot of outputs)

17.07.2025 10:14 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

Does the business of spamming random CVs to people really work? If I get an unsolicited "we found a dev you might want to hire" email, it doesn't matter if they're excellent, I just focus on the fact the recruitment company is spamming me. They must make money somehow, though?

17.07.2025 09:21 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
β€œAI Overview
The solution to the clue β€œdark drink (cap to be removed)” is SPIRE. The β€œcap” refers to the top letter of the word β€œdrink” (the letter K). Removing that letter from β€œdrink” leaves you with β€œd rin”, which when rearranged, spells β€œspire”.β€˜

β€œAI Overview The solution to the clue β€œdark drink (cap to be removed)” is SPIRE. The β€œcap” refers to the top letter of the word β€œdrink” (the letter K). Removing that letter from β€œdrink” leaves you with β€œd rin”, which when rearranged, spells β€œspire”.β€˜

Google query: β€œOrder one to have new union”
First result is the Private Eye website listing the crossword itself. Under that is the AI Overview, stating:
β€˜The answer is SPIRE.
This is a classic crossword clue, playing on the phrase β€œorder one” which refers to a spire, and β€œnew union” which is a clever way to describe the joining together of elements to form a new spire.’

Google query: β€œOrder one to have new union” First result is the Private Eye website listing the crossword itself. Under that is the AI Overview, stating: β€˜The answer is SPIRE. This is a classic crossword clue, playing on the phrase β€œorder one” which refers to a spire, and β€œnew union” which is a clever way to describe the joining together of elements to form a new spire.’

Finding the Private Eye crossword tricky this week. Resorted to googling a clue, to be greeted with this. Googled another just to see (I’d worked out that one), got... the same answer. The most average answer to all crosswords!

14.07.2025 06:54 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0

The team are in London in accommodation that's not suited to the heat. Anyone have cool working suggestions for 5 people in the Shepherd's Bush area?

10.07.2025 06:39 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I’ve put an HTML version of Volume 1 of the Post Office Inquiry report up at postofficeinquiry.dracos.co.uk/report/

Footnotes all present, internal links to inquiry documents not there yet, but hopefully will be straightforward to add in a bit.

08.07.2025 15:25 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Followed a legislation.gov.uk link on your phone? Found it impossible to read?

Followed a link in a message on my phone to legislation.gov.uk, and this time got fed up enough of its desktop-only website to do something about it: presenting adlegem.dracos.co.uk which will make a legislation.gov.uk page readable on mobile :)

05.07.2025 09:34 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 7

Can someone please make this work in Edge!? I love it.

04.07.2025 12:57 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I tend to use government by exception. Having quick access to "apply for compensation for a criminal injury" is, hopefully, not something I need 'quick access' to (or at least not quicker than just searching the web for it.

I expect others are different and need to use somethings daily/weekly/etc

01.07.2025 14:44 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0