How to read the General Synod 2026 explorers
The six explorers created show the same 2026 General Synod elections from different angles, and each page explains itself in the notes at the top of every section.
The explorers relate to Synod Overview, Detailed STV results, Sex, Synod Experience, Age and Sexuality Stance.
This page is a short guide to what they share, so you can read any of them quickly.
What each explorer is for
| Explorer | The question it answers | Start here if you want to |
| Overview | Who stood, who was elected, and how contested was each election? | See every election, its quota, turnout and first preferences |
| STV Count | What happened, count by count, in one election? | Follow votes and transfers for a single diocese or constituency |
| Stance | How do candidates and those elected divide on sexuality? | See the stance labels, the evidence behind them and the 2021–26 votes |
| Sex | How did women and men fare? | Compare women and men among candidates and elected, with 2021 |
| Experience | How did sitting, past, co-opted and new members fare? | See who was re-elected and who was new |
| Age | What is the age profile of those elected? | See year of birth by House, diocese and group |
| er | What if some labels were different? | Test how the overall picture changes (see the separate guide) |
If you are new to this, is it probably best to begin with the Overview. You can then open an election’s name for its detail and use the link to the STV Count to see how the count unfolded.
Every page has an Other explorers row at the top to enable easy moving between them.
What every explorer has in common
- The opening view. Each page opens on the elected Clergy and Laity members, including unopposed elections and the Armed Forces and Channel Islands seats. Change this with the controls at the top.
- Controls filter everything below them. The various filters (by House, province, election, sex, previous Synod experience, year of birth, stance label, Inclusive Candidates list and Save the Parish) can be combined to make different slices of the data appear. A line headed Filters applied at the top of the screen always says what is currently selected.
- Show. You can switch what is shown between the elected only, candidates and elected together side-by-side (with a success rate), candidates only, or those not elected.
- Success rate is the number elected divided by the number who stood in that group. Rates based on fewer than 10 candidates are marked as small, because one person moves them a long way.
- Names are clickable. A candidate’s name opens a box with their details and a link to their election address.
- Sorting and saving data. Tables sort when you click a heading, and most can be downloaded as CSV.
- Seats in each House draws one dot per elected seat. Grey dots are seats your controls have filtered out, so the House keeps its full size. Hovering over a seat shows you who it refers to and clicking it opens data about the elected member.
- Age. Year of birth is held only for those elected not for candidates who were not elected.
- Where the data comes from. Candidates, results and counts are taken from the diocesan election exports which were uploaded into an AirTable database, with the last export dated 31 October 2026.
Stance labels: five labels, or three
Every candidate carries one label on the question of sexuality (the Living in Love and Faith debate), based on recorded evidence. No label is based on how the candidate’s votes were transferred in the count. The labels describe a recorded position, not a person’s whole theology.
| Label | Used when |
| Conservative | The evidence is firm: a consistent pattern of two or more For/Against votes in the last Synod, or membership of a CEEC-related network |
| Likely conservative | There is real but less firm evidence: a single Synod vote, or a reading of the election address |
| Likely revisionist | As Likely conservative, on the other side |
| Revisionist | As Conservative, on the other side: the Inclusive Candidates register or a consistent voting pattern |
| Not established | None of the evidence settles a position |
Five labels or three. The Stance Explorer always shows all five labels, together with the combined groups All conservative (Conservative plus Likely conservative) and All revisionist (Likely revisionist plus Revisionist). The other explorers have a switch for five labels or three, and the three-label view simply merges the two “Likely” labels into their firmer neighbours. A dashed pill or a note such as “of which 3 less firm” tells you how many in a combined group rest on the less firm evidence, so the three-label view never hides how solid the labelling is.
Not established is not a middle position. It means the evidence runs out, not that the candidate sits between the two sides. Vote transfers can hint at where such candidates lean, but only in aggregate (section 9 of the Stance Explorer), never as a label on a named person.
Overall label for a constituency. The Stance Explorer labels the people elected in a constituency by adding the two conservative labels and the two revisionist labels. A side with more than half is Conservative or Revisionist; exactly half (with some Not established) is Half conservative or Half revisionist; equal numbers with nobody Not established is Tied.
How strong is the evidence?
Section 7 of the Stance Explorer sorts every label into three levels of evidence.
| Level | What it means |
| Established | On the Inclusive Candidates register, or two or more For/Against Synod votes all on one side, or a member of a CEEC-related network |
| Qualified | No Established evidence, but an election-address label of Conservative or Progressive, or exactly one For/Against vote |
| Not established | None of these settles a position |
The last Synod’s votes that are used are the following four recorded votes: the February 2023 final motion, the Cornes amendment (February 2023), the November 2023 final motion and the July 2026 PMM (King). Voting for the Cornes amendment counts as conservative; voting for on the other three counts as revisionist.
Reading the numbers with care
- Seats and quotas. Elections use the single transferable vote. A candidate is elected on reaching the quota (though some are elected at the end below quota). Votes above quota (a surplus), or those of an excluded candidate, pass to the next preference. The STV Count Explorer shows each count in turn.
- Order of election. Section 8 of the Stance Explorer asks whether members of each label tend to be elected early (a large first-preference vote) or in the last seats. Figures for groups of fewer than 10 are marked.
- Aggregate transfer estimates. Section 9 of the Stance Explorer uses how other voters’ later preferences moved to or from a candidate. It says where voters’ preferences went, not what the candidate believes, and is checked against the labels in 9b, where transfers at 90% or more almost always agree.
- Age. Year of birth is held only for those elected, so the Age Explorer describes who was elected, not who stood. Any age given is 2026 minus year of birth and so can be a year out for an individual.
- Experience. Sitting member includes anyone serving at the end of the last Synod including those who stood in a different constituency (which the data does not distinguish). Co-opted (11 candidates) and past members (45) are small groups.
- Small numbers. Where a group is small, one person moves a percentage a long way; treat these rates as illustrations.
Links, printing and phones
- Copy link to this view gives an address that reopens the page with the same filters, which you can paste into an article or message.
- Print. The pages are built for the screen and are not designed to print; to keep a table, use its Download table as CSV button.
- Phones. The pages are laid out to work at phone width, although the big tables are easier to read on a larger screen.
Please send any comments or corrections or suggestions to me at goddardaj@gmail.com