- Dead man walking - 12th June 2025
- Not timid - 11th June 2025
- ‘This time when I vote for you I’m going to MEAN it…’ copyright H. Simpson - 11th June 2025
During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, political stories as well as covering elections have always been paramount, and as the rows over changes to electoral laws in Wales hot up, now comes disturbing news from the United States of America (USA), where Donald Trump is about to tighten voting restrictions, even though they have a very problematic history.
Huge political controversies have erupted abroad as well as closer to home, so journalists like me need to be on our toes.
Elections to the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) next year will be the first ones under a new system, and there have already been rows.
These are likely to increase in the months ahead, although they could be nothing compared with what we may be about to witness across the pond.
Let’s look at the WP/SC elections due on May 7 2026 first.
They will be the first elections following reforms to the voting system, which would increase the size of the WP/SC from 60 members to 96, adopting a party-list process, reducing the number of constituencies to 16, and shortening its term from five years to four.
But there has been heavy criticism from leading politicians.
For example the Labour Member of the Senedd (MS) Mike Hedges has had a go at the list system, which will be ‘closed’.
He said that closed lists “give all the power to political parties or leadership of political parties who will get to pick how high up the list you go. It will promote party-think and group-think”.
Mr Hedges, the member for Swansea East, declared: “I can’t see any advantages of the system being proposed.
“It is going to create very large constituencies. You could have one stretching from Lower Brynamman or Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen to the English border in Monmouthshire or the sea in Ceredigion – almost too big for people to feel part of.
“I think six MSs will confuse people. I knock on your door and say ‘Hello, it’s Mike Hedges. I represent you in the Senedd.’ And you say: ‘Oh no you don’t, last week someone else knocked on the door and said they represent me in the Senedd.'”
The man behind the new legislation (who is also Labour incidentally) conceded that it was a compromise with no “unanimity” over what the new system should be.
But Mick Antoniw stressed that HE believed the new system would be far MORE representative.
Others of our politicians though (we vote for these people remember) back Mr Hedges, while some support Mr Antoniw.
The Welsh Conservatives (WC) are strongly opposed to the plans.
Darren Millar, the Tory MS for Clwyd West and leader of his group in the WP/SC said a referendum should have taken place because it is “such a significant change”.
“This is a real step backwards for people power and direct accountability. It doesn’t show respect for the public and it puts the power over who’s elected to the Senedd in the hands of party leaders.”
Plaid Cymru’s (Plaid’s) Heledd Fychan, on the other hand, has said the WP/SC needs to expand.
So some believe the new scheme could be extremely positive, others that it might be a recipe for disaster – but what is certain is that this won’t be a smooth ride.
Nor is it likely to be in the USA where a new system may mean voting RESTRICTIONS (as opposed to EXPANDING the legislature)!
In his second term Donald Trump is jostling for even tighter rules, and in one of his executive orders he criticised America’s “patchwork of voting methods” and calls for a national set of rules that require voters to prove their citizenship before registering.
The attorney-general, it said, would also force states to stop counting absentee ballots that arrive after election day.
Even before a new federal law, however, some states are passing voter restrictions with gusto.
Since January at least 25 states have introduced new voter ID bills, 30 have ones related to citizenship verification and 26 are trying to change the rules around absentee voting.
Florida lawmakers decided to punish non-citizens who vote with up to five years in prison and Wisconsin voters enshrined a voter ID requirement in their state’s constitution.
Americans want it to be harder to cheat in elections and “that’s why states aren’t waiting for a solution from Washington“, says Lee Schalk of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group that writes model legislation.
So it is obvious that election changes are not simple or straight forward, and the turmoil might only become worse.
Watch out…
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when political stories and elections have always been central) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – how during that career for Phil analysing statistics has always been central, but he is not very good with numbers and this is now put centre stage by the news that Russian casualties in Ukraine are this month likely to reach a million, yet the sources are from journalists, as well as outside the Russian government.
