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Understanding devolution in Wales
Understanding devolution in Wales

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5 Low voter turnout

Voter turnout is often viewed as an indicator of the health of a democracy. The lower the numbers of people making the effort to vote, the less interested they are in the activities of the politicians they elected.

Turnout has been declining across the UK since its highest levels of around 80% in the 1950s. Turnout in an election to the Welsh Parliament has never exceeded 60%.

Writing in the British Journal of Political Science in 2004, Roger Scully, Richard Wyn Jones and Dafydd Trystan identified three possible reasons for this: antipathy to the Welsh institutions, apathy to the Welsh institutions or apathy to politics more generally. They suggest apathy – in Wales and to politics more generally – are the most likely reasons. This is borne out in the table below which suggests votes where the stakes feel very high, such as the Brexit referendum, have the highest levels of turnout.

Table _unit4.5.1 Table 1 Percentage turnout in Wales at all national polls since 1997
Year Election Turnout in Wales (%)
1997 Devolution referendum 50.22
1999 National Assembly for Wales 46.3
1999 European Parliament 29
2001 General Election 61.6
2003 National Assembly for Wales 38.2
2004 European Parliament 41.4
2005 General Election 62.4
2007 National Assembly for Wales 43.7
2009 European Parliament 30.4
2010 General Election 64.9
2011 Devolution referendum 35.6
2011 National Assembly for Wales 42.2
2014 European Parliament 31.5
2015 General Election 65.6
2016 National Assembly for Wales 45.3
2016 EU referendum 71.7
2017 General Election 68.6
2019 European Parliament 37.1
2019 General Election 66.6
Described image
Figure _unit4.5.1 Figure 1 Average turnout by poll type