Chris Game looks at the example of Denbighshire's Prestatyn North elections as proof that dated electoral systems – and the means to challenge them – need significant reform.

Remember the 2000 US Presidential election, the seemingly endless Florida recounts, and how we mocked an electoral system that took 35 days to produce a winner? Well, with less than the leadership of the Western world riding on the outcome, it's just taken the little matter of 297 days for Paul Penlington, a winning candidate in last May's Welsh local elections, to finally take his seat at Denbighshire CC.