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Andrew Teale's avatar

Possibly the closest the UK has come to the Longest Ballot Committee was when the Monster Raving Loony Party put up 13 candidates for a 2021 council by-election in Kingston upon Thames (https://www.andrewteale.me.uk/isqa). Two key differences are that UK local elections have no deposit, and the number of signatures required to stand was reduced from ten to two as a temporary Covid measure (which has since been made permanent).

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Lee David Evans's avatar

Interesting! I didn’t know about the Kingston-upon-Thames example. For the reasons you give, it’s a little surprising that it hasn’t happened more often in local government elections. A reasonably sized family could get a fair few people nominated…

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