General Synod elections 2026: candidates and elected members by sexuality stance label, and how strong the evidence behind each label is.
There are five labels: Conservative, Likely conservative, Not established, Likely revisionist and Revisionist.
Each label rests on recorded evidence: the Inclusive Candidates (IC) register, Synod votes, membership of CEEC-related networks or the election address.
Where none of these settles a position, the candidate is shown as Not established.
The page opens on the elected Clergy and Laity members, including unopposed elections and the Armed Forces and Channel Islands seats; the controls below change this.
Click any candidate name to open the candidate box, which gives the full evidence statement.
Sections 1, 2 and 4 to 8 follow the controls; section 3 (the last Synod's votes) has its own filters; section 9 (vote transfers) covers the whole Synod. The Sections button in the strip below opens, collapses or jumps to any section.
This page always shows all five labels. It also shows the combined groups (All conservative = Conservative plus Likely conservative; All revisionist = Likely revisionist plus Revisionist). The other explorers can switch between five labels and three.
Conservative or Revisionist are used only where the evidence is firm: the Inclusive Candidates register, a consistent pattern of two or more For/Against Synod votes, or membership of a CEEC-related network.
Likely conservative or Likely revisionist are used where there is real but less firm evidence: a single Synod vote, or a reading of the election address.
Everyone else is Not established.
Vote transfers are never used to label, colour, sort or filter a named candidate.
Filters applied:
Summary of your selection
Selected election
This section appears when exactly one election is chosen in the Election control.
It lists everyone who stood in that election, in order of result, whatever the other controls say.
Click a name for the candidate box; the step-by-step count and transfers are in the STV Count Explorer.
1. Candidates and elected, by House
There is one table for each House, with a combined table when more than one House is shown.
The columns follow the Show control: elected only, candidates and elected (with the success rate), candidates only, or not elected only.
Each % is the share of that House's candidates (or elected members) with that label.
Success rate is the number elected divided by the number of candidates with that label.
2. Stance by diocese and constituency
There is one row per election, for the Houses and other controls chosen above, and the first row is a total.
How to read this section
Use the buttons to show candidates, those elected, or both; each label and the Overview group also show a success rate (elected divided by candidates).
The Overview columns add together the two conservative labels (All cons.), Not established, and the two revisionist labels (All rev.).
Use Group by (one or two levels) to total elections by province, diocese, House, last-Synod voting pattern and so on, and Columns to hide columns you do not need.
The Pattern column gives the overall result of the 2021–26 members' four votes in that constituency (see section 3); click it to open the box showing how they voted. The Overall column labels the 2026 result for the constituency (all those elected, whatever the controls say) and Shift compares the two.
Click a number to list those candidates, then click a name to open the candidate box; click a pattern for the last Synod's votes; click an election name, or any other part of a row, for the election box.
Click a heading to sort; the headings and election names stay in view as you scroll. The Count column is last and links to the STV Count Explorer.
Armed Forces and Channel Islands have no candidate list, so their Cand. figure is shown as n/a, but those elected are counted as both candidates and elected in the stance columns.
Overall labels (the people elected in a constituency, adding the two conservative labels and the two revisionist labels): Conservative or Revisionist = that side is more than half; Half conservative or Half revisionist = that side is exactly half, but the rest are not all on the other side (some are Not established), so it is not a tie; Tied = the two sides are equal and nobody is Not established; Not established = none of these. Example: 4 elected, 2 conservative, 1 revisionist and 1 Not established gives Half conservative.
3. How the last Synod's members voted on sexuality, by seat group
This section describes the 2021–26 Synod, so it has its own filters below and ignores the controls at the top of the page.
How to read this section
There is one row for each of the 145 seat groups: the 95 constituencies elected this time, the diocesan bishops, the ex officio members, the Archbishops' Council appointees and the co-opted members. House starts as Clergy and Laity, so tick Bishops in the House filter to add the bishops; the total row covers the groups shown.
The four recorded votes are the Feb 2023 final motion, the Cornes amendment (Feb 2023), the Nov 2023 final motion and the July 2026 PMM (King).
Cons. and Rev. count the votes for each side: For on the Cornes amendment counts as conservative, and For on the other three votes counts as revisionist (the same reading as in the evidence for the stance labels). Balance shows which side had more.
Pattern gives one overall result for the four balances: Conservative or Revisionist if all four, or three with one tie, are on that side; Mostly conservative or revisionist if three are on that side and one is on the other; Leans conservative or revisionist if two are on that side and two are tied; Tied if three or four are tied; Mixed for any other split. Hover over a pattern to see the four balances. A tie includes a vote in which nobody in the group voted (absent or vacant). The pattern is left blank for bishops, except for the two elected suffragan groups.
Standing in 2026 counts the members of the group who are candidates in 2026 (in any election) and how many of them were elected, so co-opted members who stood and were elected show here.
Elected in 2026: overall takes everyone elected in the constituency (whatever the controls at the top say) and adds the two conservative labels (All cons.) and the two revisionist labels (All rev.). It is Conservative or Revisionist if that side is more than half of those elected; Tied if the two sides are equal and nobody elected is Not established; Half conservative or Half revisionist if that side is exactly half and it is not a tie (the rest are not all on the other side); otherwise Not established.
Shift compares the side of the last Synod pattern with the side of the 2026 label (Half counts as that side). It is not a total swing: where the pattern was Mixed or Tied there was no prior side, so a move to a side is marked no prior side.
Abstentions, absent or vacant seats and some other columns are hidden to save space; use Columns to show them.
Click a row for the box with every member, how each voted and, for those standing in 2026, a link to their candidate box.
Overall labels (the people elected in a constituency, adding the two conservative labels and the two revisionist labels): Conservative or Revisionist = that side is more than half; Half conservative or Half revisionist = that side is exactly half, but the rest are not all on the other side (some are Not established), so it is not a tie; Tied = the two sides are equal and nobody is Not established; Not established = none of these. Example: 4 elected, 2 conservative, 1 revisionist and 1 Not established gives Half conservative.
3b. Last Synod pattern against the 2026 overall label
Each cell counts the constituencies elected this time (in the seat groups shown above) with that last Synod pattern and that 2026 label; click a count for the list.
The shift summary underneath counts the same constituencies by shift.
3c. Members of the last Synod who stood again in 2026
This counts the members in the seat groups shown above (a seat that changed hands counts each person), as totals only: no names are flagged.
Rows show which side each member's own recorded votes were on (all their For/Against votes on one side, or both sides); columns show whether they stood again, whether they were elected, and the label they have for 2026.
Seats in each House (switched off)
There is one semicircle for each House chosen in the House control, and a combined one when more than one is shown; each dot is one elected seat.
Dots are coloured by stance label, from Conservative on the left to Revisionist on the right; within a label they run in order of election name.
Grey dots are seats that the other controls above have filtered out, so the House keeps its full size.
Hover over a dot for the name, click it for the candidate box, or click a label in the key for the list.
Bishops are the suffragan bishop seats only.
4. Candidate pool compared with elected
This section always compares everyone who stood with those elected, whatever Show is set to.
In the shares view, the top bar is all candidates and the bottom bar is those elected; a label that grows from the top bar to the bottom bar did better than its share of the pool.
In the success-rate view, bar length is the percentage elected, with elected / candidates in the label.
Rates based on fewer than 10 candidates are marked.
5. From candidate to elected
There is one diagram for each House, and it always shows everyone who stood, whatever Show is set to.
Bands run from each label on the left to the result on the right; band width is the number of candidates, and the figure on each band is its count.
Hover over a band for its count.
Click a band for the list of its candidates, then click a name to open the candidate box.
6. Stance label, by sex and by previous Synod experience
For each group, the bars show how its members divide between the five stance labels.
With Show set to candidates and elected, the upper bar is all candidates and the lower bar those elected; compare the two to see whether a label did better or worse than its share of the pool.
7. How strong is the evidence?
Established = on the Inclusive Candidates register, or two or more For/Against Synod votes all on one side, or a member of one of the CEEC-related networks (matched by name and diocese).
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; vote transfers are not used to label these candidates.
Bars are coloured by stance label.
Click a coloured segment to list its candidates, then click a name to open the candidate box.
8. When in the count were they elected, and with how many first preferences?
8a groups elected members by the order they reached quota: the first third of the seats, the middle third and the last third.
It shows whether members with each sexuality stance label tend to be elected early (a large first-preference vote) or in the last seats.
Elections with fewer than 3 seats and unopposed elections are left out of 8a.
8b shows the average first-preference vote of each stance label as a percentage of the quota (the line marks 100%), with two extra bars for all conservative (Conservative and Likely conservative together) and all revisionist (Likely revisionist and Revisionist together).
8b uses contested elections with a recorded count; the figures are group averages with no names, and groups of fewer than 10 are marked.
8a. Order in which elected members reached quota
8b. First preferences as a percentage of the quota
9. What vote transfers suggest, in aggregate only
Vote transfers (how other voters' preferences moved to or from a candidate in the count) give a statistical estimate.
It is shown here only as totals for a House, with no names, and is not used to label, colour, sort or filter any named candidate.
The estimate says where voters' later preferences went, not what the candidate believes.
This section covers the whole Synod (Clergy and Laity, elections with a known candidate list, bishops not shown) and does not change with the controls above.
"Usable" means at least 10 votes moved to or from the candidate.
"Clearly" means a transfer-only probability of 90% or more for that side, and "weaker" means 75% to under 90%.
In the 9b check below, transfers at 90% or more almost always agree with the label, and those at 75% to 90% are less reliable.
9a. Candidates whose position is Not established
Not established
Clearly lean conservative (90%+)
Weaker lean conservative (75% to 90%)
Clearly lean revisionist (90%+)
Weaker lean revisionist (75% to 90%)
No clear pattern, or too few votes
Clergy, candidates
132
30 (23%)
1 (1%)
13 (10%)
1 (1%)
87 (66%)
Clergy, elected
31
11 (35%)
1 (3%)
5 (16%)
1 (3%)
13 (42%)
Laity, candidates
265
64 (24%)
11 (4%)
17 (6%)
6 (2%)
167 (63%)
Laity, elected
50
21 (42%)
3 (6%)
4 (8%)
1 (2%)
21 (42%)
"No clear pattern, or too few votes" combines a probability under 75% for either side, fewer than 10 votes moved, and no usable transfers.
All groups are shown in full, including small ones, because no names are attached.
Elected are also counted among the candidates.
9b. Check on the Established and Qualified labels
The transfer estimate does not use a candidate's own evidence, so it works as an independent check on the labels.
For candidates labelled Established or Qualified and with usable transfers, how often do the transfers point the same way as the label?
This is shown at House level only and not for individual candidates.
Labelled
With usable transfers
Transfers clearly agree with the label (90%+)
Transfers weakly agree (75% to 90%)
Other (no clear pattern, or the other side)
No usable transfers
Established, Clergy, candidates
213
126 (59%)
119 (94%)
6 (5%)
1
87
Established, Clergy, elected
137
76 (55%)
71 (93%)
5 (7%)
0
61
Established, Laity, candidates
218
150 (69%)
135 (90%)
5 (3%)
10
68
Established, Laity, elected
127
82 (65%)
73 (89%)
3 (4%)
6
45
Qualified, Clergy, candidates
82
42 (51%)
35 (83%)
2 (5%)
5
40
Qualified, Clergy, elected
28
15 (54%)
13 (87%)
2 (13%)
0
13
Qualified, Laity, candidates
62
42 (68%)
35 (83%)
1 (2%)
6
20
Qualified, Laity, elected
18
11 (61%)
9 (82%)
0 (0%)
2
7
"Agree" means the transfer-only probability for the label's side is at the stated level; percentages are of those with usable transfers.
These are counts of unnamed candidates, so no small-number rule is applied in 9a or 9b.