Eighteenth-century elections are largely synonymous with corruption and debauchery, epitomised by the infamous 'rotten' and 'pocket' boroughs, and memorably represented by William Hogarth's 'Humours of an Election' series (1755). Certainly only a small proportion of the population could vote. Even fewer could exercise their vote freely. Although general elections were supposed to be held every three, then seven, years, the huge expense of campaigning ensured only a small proportion of constituencies were contested. This was no modern democracy. Yet parliamentary elections were fundamentally important to all, not only for the selection of MPs, but also in bestowing a sense of power and belonging (even if only temporarily), in helping to form the nation's self-image, and in helping to forge a new constitutionalist tradition. Moreover, we want to show, elections not only affected, but also engaged, a wide section of the population - both those enfranchised and those not. Elections were often accompanied by an explosion of print, sermons, and song; countless ceremonies, assemblies, and entertainments; new modes of dress, decoration, and behaviour. Men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, franchised and unenfranchised, all participated - as consumers, but also as active makers of this unique cultural and political experience. Our project's fundamental aims are to shine an intense light on these extraordinary moments of participation, ritual, and sometimes carnival, and to consider their consequences and legacies. To do this we will collect new polling data from constituencies across England 1696-1831, working in partnership with local historian groups; subject this data to new kinds of scrutiny using innovative digital tools; and gather the cultural artefacts and practices which constituted people's lived experiences of elections. We will gain new insight into electoral demography, voter behaviour, and how voting patterns changed over time, across regions, and in different types of constituency. And from a combination of archival and creative practice research (the latter designed to reimagine and re-enact important elements of elections now lost) we will gain new understanding of the extent, pervasiveness, and inclusiveness of electoral culture. By placing polling data in its cultural contexts, we will come to understand whether the elements of campaigning - print and processions, banquets and ballads, sashes and sermons - made a difference to political outcomes, or left any significant legacy beyond election time. So this project is about two things: how people participate in politics, both with and without the vote; and how interventions across a proliferating range of media affect polling behaviour and outcomes. Both remain highly relevant in our own time. Today, many choose not to vote. This is very different from being excluded from the franchise, as was the great majority in the 18th century. But our research will challenge us to think differently about how non-voters may engage with democratic processes - through music, literature, fashion and art, for example, or via broadcast journalism and social media when once it was handbills and the hustings. We will want to ask whether contemporary phenomena such as data analytics and targeted digital communication strategies have counterparts, even origins, in pre-Reform Britain, and what effects, if any, these kinds of interventions have on people's relationship to the demos. Working with our partners, History of Parliament and the IHR, we aim to communicate our findings to audiences well beyond academia, particularly to schools and at a series of events timed (if possible) to accompany the next UK General Election. As well as reshaping our understanding of how elections functioned before parliamentary reform, we intend that this project should usefully inform pressing debates about political communication and political participation today.